


The Lamb in the Wolfskin Coat

by highestkingbambi, ruinlas



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, Hardboiled style AU, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Organized Crime, Private Investigators
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-04
Updated: 2019-01-04
Packaged: 2019-10-04 00:47:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 33,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17294474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/highestkingbambi/pseuds/highestkingbambi, https://archiveofourown.org/users/ruinlas/pseuds/ruinlas
Summary: It’s the height of Summer in Los Angeles, 1948. Private Investigator Margo Hanson and her assistant Eliot Waugh are hired by Julia Wicker to look into the disappearance of her best friend, Quentin Coldwater.Meanwhile, cracks in Margo’s personal life are starting to appear and they may not be as disconnected to her case as they first seem.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Entry for The 2018 Trials, as hosted by [The Welters Challenge](https://www.thewelterschallenge.tumblr.com)
> 
> Written by [highestkingbambi](https://www.highestkingbambi.tumblr.com)  
> Artwork by [ruinlas](https://www.ruinlas.tumblr.com)
> 
> If you enjoy the story and artwork, we’d love your feedback!
> 
> In addition, a huge thanks to my truly spectacular beta editor [OneEyedDestroyer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/OneEyedDestroyer). I couldn’t have written this without you.

[](https://ibb.co/RCRPk1H)

Margo Hanson leaned back in her chair and brought her legs up onto her desk. Her pleated trousers rode up her shins to reveal tanned, naked ankles, while her black and white leather brogues rested over the edge of the mahogany wood. She let out a sigh and brought a cigarette to her lips while her other hand loosened the black silk tie around her neck. 

It had been a long day, tailing hapless philanderers chasing pussy they couldn’t afford. Infidelity was the bread and butter for her line of work, but it didn’t make it any less depressing. After lighting the end of her cigarette with a stray matchstick, she took a long, well-deserved drag. Margo pursed her lips and released the smoke into the air above her, throwing her hands behind her neck. Her fingers searched for the handful of pins keeping her hair in a chignon and pulled them out one by one. Released from their hold, her hair fell down in cascading chestnut waves and she felt the pressure in her head disappear while the nicotine worked its way through her system to relax the tension in her body. Thank fuck the day was over. 

Across the room, she saw her hand-cut, crystal decanter, filled with a Tennessee whiskey that she wished was in a glass in her hand. “Eliot!” she called out, too weary from the day to get up and walk the few feet to the sideboard. An exceptionally tall man in an immaculate, three-piece suit entered her office with an air of dignified offense. “Be a doll and fetch me a drink,” she requested as her dark eyes trailed from his perfectly coiffed raven curls to his polished oxfords in unashamed appraisal. 

Margo was pleased to have found the aspiring actor, fresh off a bus from Nowheresville, Indiana. Stars in his eyes but only lint in his pockets, he marched into her office one muggy Los Angeles summer day in ‘45 and demanded a job. Reluctant to give in to his sense of entitlement, she quickly saw his worth. His pale skin and rakish masculinity afforded her easier access to locations that her own complexion and gender prevented. But even more than that; for there was always an in if you knew the right people—Eliot had a way with her clients that she never would. Uptight, skittish society women with limited access to their husbands’ funds were so easily put off by her brash personality and lack of respect for protocol, yet he seemed designed for stroking their desperate egos. Perhaps it was his time in the Army, or maybe he was just raised that way. In any case, it didn’t matter. She hired him that very day. 

Three years later and not a single film credit to his name, he’d stuck with her. Despite his chiseled jaw and impeccable affectation of that oh so irritating transatlantic accent the Hollywood types were fond of, he’d never cracked the audition process to become the world-famous actor he dreamed he would become. Margo didn’t have the heart to tell him he was probably too tall for the pictures; John Wayne was the exception, not the rule. She was terrified he might leave her for the East Coast to try his hand at theatre. 

“Don’t forget to get one for yourself,” she added, watching him with a keen eye as he poured a generous fifth of the amber liquid into a lowball tumbler. It had come with her decanter; a matching set, stolen as a memento of her estranged parents. 

“When do I ever forget, my dear?” he replied, having already poured the second glass. He snuck an extra few ounces for himself as per usual, but she always let him get away with it. Balancing both glasses in the palm of his hand, Eliot closed the distance between them with a single step and took the seat in front of her desk before he passed her the glass. Still holding his own, he reached out to clink it against the crystal. “To a day like every other, filled with sad women and boring men,” he said with a glint in his eye that suggested he had bigger and better plans for the evening. 

“And how are you planning on fixing this day?” she raised her brow. Margo brought the glass up to her lips and finished half the liquid in one go.

Eliot reached across the desk, picked up her smoldering cigarette and brought it to his lips. “Oh, you know, the usual,” he said, taking a lazy drag rather than explain what he had in mind. Margo glared at him, her deep brown eyes a cold, endless abyss that demanded answers. “Fine,” he huffed, snuffing out her cigarette in defiance. “I got a line on an RKO producer who likes to find pliant young men in dark theatres, and I intend to show him just how ‘pliant’ I can be.” Eliot’s mouth curled up into a satisfied smirk as her glare fell apart. “Before you know it, you’ll be telling your clients you used to boss around the greatest actor of our generation.” 

Ready to dash his hopes of stardom, Margo was cut off by the sound of a door being slammed. Aluminum venetians clanged against the glass panel of the main entrance. Suddenly, a clenched fist appeared in the shadows behind the door to her office. She reached into her desk drawer, drew out her Remington .38 revolver and carefully checked that it was loaded. At the same time, Eliot produced a pistol from beneath his jacket and aimed across his body with his left hand. Margo thumbed the superfluous mother of pearl handle before she cocked back the hammer and leveled it up at the figure. The shadowy fist made four knocks on the frosted glass, each deliberately softer than the last.

“For Christ’s sake Todd, I could have shot you,” Margo called out. She recognized the knocking pattern of the building’s concierge and returned the hammer to its position before she placed the revolver back in its drawer. “Come in before I decide to do it anyway.” 

The door opened slowly to reveal a young man—barely nineteen, with a mop of curls on his head and an eager look on his innocent face. Eliot rolled his eyes and replaced his weapon in his concealed holster. With a gentle nod, Margo encouraged Todd to come inside her office. A huge smile broke out on his face as he entered the room as his eyes darted around taking everything in.

“I have a message for you, Mar-Ms Hanson,” he said, quickly covering for his minor indiscretion. “I tried to see if she’d wait on the line until I could bring you downstairs, but she said it was urgent that I take the message because she had to make a flight.” Not knowing where to stand, Todd, paced around the small office in short strides while his hands rolled over each other in a gesture that made Margo motion sick. 

“Who, what, when, where and why?” She said slowly. Margo kicked her legs off the desk and stood up. “You want to take calls for me, you know the questions you gotta ask.” Margo placed her hands on the top of the desk and leaned her body forward, demanding answers. They’d gone over it together numerous times, though having Todd answer her calls was more for her own benefit than his. Telephones were expensive and required her to be listed, which made it too easy to be found. Plus, it was always so much fun to make Todd run up five flights of stairs anytime a client called the building looking for her. 

Todd took a deep breath and held out his right hand. With his left index, he touched his right thumb. “Who, her name was Julia Wicker,” he said confidently. “What, well obviously she wants to hire you,” he added, pointing to his right index finger with an irritating grin. “When and where, uh she’s coming from New York, or maybe New Jersey...I don’t remember exactly, but she said she had to get on a flight to come out here tomorrow or the day after and that’s why she couldn’t wait.” His eyes darted up and to the left once he’d tapped his middle finger and moved onto the fourth.

“And the why?” Eliot interrupted him, bored by the change in conversation.

“Of course, I know the why, I wrote it down,” Todd said, beaming with pride at his ability to do his unofficial job. He pulled a crumpled piece of paper from his trouser pocket and tried to hand it to Margo. Instead, Eliot easily snatched it from Todd’s outstretched arm and smoothed the paper on his thigh before he gave it a read. 

“This Julia wants to hire us to find her best friend, an aspiring screenwriter named Quentin Coldwater whom she thinks is missing.” Eliot paraphrased the note, clearly leaving out information he couldn’t bother reading. “She’s wired two hundred dollars as a retainer, and will double that plus expenses once she reaches Los Angeles.” His voice rose at the mention of the money and Margo rounded the desk to take the note from him. “Why didn’t you lead with the money, Todd?” 

“I,” Todd started to speak before he was cut short by a finger on his lips. Margo shook her head to prevent him from starting an argument with Eliot. She took a step back, put her hand in her trouser pocket and pulled out a handful of bills. Counting out three dollars, she folded them over and placed them in his shirt pocket. “Oh, thank you, Ms. Hanson.” It was more than he earned in a day, and she was glad to hear him grateful for it. She patted his chest, gently at first but followed by a forceful push to the doorway. 

“Good work, Todd,” she said as she shoved him out of the room. “You can go now.” Margo gave him a quick smack on the ass and shut the door before he could turn back and say anything. She walked back over to the front of the desk where Eliot remained seated, used her hands to prop herself up, sat on the edge of the desk and flicked one leg over the other; the pleat in her trousered leg lined up perfectly with the point of her toe. “What do you say? Hit up the Western Union with me before your hot date with disappointment?” she said, her words dripped in a hint of sarcasm that she didn’t mean. 

Eliot pulled out a pocket watch and checked the time instead of answering her question. “I suppose…” he dragged out his answer just to annoy her. “I can spare a moment or two, to play bodyguard,” he said with a satisfied smile. 

Margo leaned back and grabbed her suit jacket from where it hung over the back of her chair. She slipped off the desk and threw the jacket over her shoulders. A quick flick of her hand behind her neck and her long hair rested outside the collar and all the way down to her waist. It would have been prudent to pin it back up before they left the office, but prudence never suited her. 

When she was ready, Eliot finally stood, towering over her by over a foot. “Don’t forget you pay me extra when I work after hours,” he said as he held out his arm for her to take. Hooked by the front door were two hats. Margo took her soft, wide-brimmed fedora and angled it, so it nearly covered her right eye. Meanwhile, Eliot grabbed his own blocked hat and placed it gently on his head. Seemingly satisfied it wouldn’t ruin his hair, he locked the main door and slipped his key into his vest pocket before they made their way down the five flights of stairs to the street. 

***

At the nearest Western Union branch, they found that just as Todd had written down, two hundred dollars had been wired to her name, along with a telegram from one Julia Wicker. 

_Ms. Hanson. I trust you accepted my case. Quentin is staying at Midtown Boarding House. I will be in LA on Wednesday afternoon to see you. Regards J.W._

It was an expensive telegram and a generous retainer. Combined with the knowledge that she was flying from the East Coast to Los Angeles, Margo figured this woman was wealthy, desperate and cared deeply for her missing friend. 

With a place to start their investigation, and just under a day before their client arrived with further information, Margo sent Eliot to look into the boarding house. To her relief, it had been rather easy to successfully squash his plans for the night with the promise of double pay. It wasn’t that she had a problem with him offering himself to a shady producer—more that in his naïveté he thought it would guarantee him a credited part. She’d seen too many men lose themselves over a promise never fulfilled and she knew all too well that those producers had a habit of employing less than desirable types to clean up loose ends. He might have been able to hold his own in a fight with one or two, but that didn’t help him against a bullet in the dark. 

She watched as Eliot disappeared down the street in the back of a taxi cab. Left alone on the corner, she fingered the belt loop of her trousers and wished for the reassurance of the sidearm she left in her desk drawer. A simple task like visiting the Western Union didn’t call for her to be armed; bringing Eliot was more of a comfort than protection. For most people, Downtown, Los Angeles was hardly the safest place once the sun had set, but it was her turf. Margo knew it better than she knew anywhere else. It was only two blocks to her office, yet something—more than just the wad of cash burning a hole in her pocket—had her on edge. 

Margo walked back to her office at a brisk pace. Outside the front of her building, she pressed the buzzer and waited impatiently for Todd to open the door and let her in. “About time,” she complained, brushing past him to enter the lobby. 

“Wait, Ms. Hanson.” Todd ran ahead. “I have your suit back from the dry-cleaner and some of my mother’s famous Osso Bucco for you, in case you decide to stay here again ton-” Todd cut himself short, aware that Margo hated to have her private life brought up; even when there was no one around for her to keep up appearances for. 

She halted at his words. Her face couldn’t decide if it wanted to frown or smile and settled into an awful grimace. Todd was the only person who was aware she had slept in her office the past few nights, and it pained her that even he knew. Still, the kid was damn thoughtful, waiting until she was alone before bringing her laundry. Not to mention the food—if his mother's cooking were as good as he always said, it would be a better meal than she would have at home. 

“Thanks,” she said after a long pause. It was tough for her to admit that she appreciated his help, and a single word answer was all she could give.

While Todd raced back to the front desk to collect the items for her, Margo removed her hat and made her way back up to her office. The sight of her name, stenciled in gold on the glass panel filled her with pride. It was enough to momentarily forget the embarrassment of living out of her office. Even if it was temporary—and voluntary. She pulled her keys from her pocket and unlocked the door. After hanging her hat on the hook, she leaned against the door frame for leverage and pulled off her shoes. The cheap carpeting felt rough on her bare feet; Margo hadn’t returned to the habit of wearing nylons since rationing ended. 

By the time she hung up her jacket, Todd had already bounded up the stairs carrying her clothes over his shoulder and the food in a small plastic container. He pushed through the door and hung up her clothes, before placing the food on her desk. So thoughtful, he even provided her with cutlery. 

“Hold on, Todd,” she called out to stop him before he raced back down to the lobby. Feet frozen in place at her words, he turned his head and looked over his shoulder. Margo took a deep breath, “When is your shift over?” she asked with great reluctance. She wasn’t sure why, but she didn’t want to be alone, and he was the only choice she had. 

“Oh, Ms. Hans-”

“Call me Margo,” she interrupted with a soft smile. “But only after five. It’s Ms. Hanson during office hours.” She winced at the words. She had no right to call them office hours when she was practically living in the office. 

“Margo,” he echoed, with a grin that spread across his entire face. His whole body turned to face her. Todd was a perpetually open person; most of the time it irritated her to no end, but on occasion, it could be a comfort. “I would love to spend more time with you, you’re...so world—knowledgeable,” he continued, the grin turning sheepish as he realized what he was saying. “I just, I have to get back to the front desk. Money is tight at home since my dad got sick, you know.” Todd kept the smile, but she could see the way he became glassy-eyed at the mention of his father. 

At some point or another he had probably told her what had happened, but she hadn’t listened. Being a private investigator made her exceptionally observant. It also made her hesitant to strike up personal relationships. All day she lived in the world where bad trumped good, where people’s worst fears were almost always confirmed. “I’m—” she stopped to consider the right words. Sympathy was a quality that she sorely lacked. “I might have some work for you...if you need extra cash,” she offered employment instead of condolence. It was safer than getting dragged into a conversation about his home life. 

“Thanks, Margo,” he said, the smile back on his face. “Would I get to do the stuff that you and Mr. Waugh do?” He asked her earnest. The excitement radiated out of him, warming her cold heart, and she almost wanted to say yes. 

“Maybe. Once you’ve proven yourself,” she tried diplomacy, careful not to dash his hopes too early with the dull reality that any help he would provide would be closer to picking up her laundry than chasing down leads.

“On the beam!” he said, without a hint of irony. He was just a child. “Well, I have to get back to the desk, and you should eat that food before it goes cold. Mamma is going to ask me what you thought, and she’ll blame me if you don’t like it because it’s not hot enough.” Todd seemed genuinely afraid of his mother’s disappointment, further exaggerating his youth. “Goodnight, Margo.”

Margo walked over to where he stood smiling. He was still riding high from being allowed to call her by her first name. “Goodnight Todd,” she said in return as he left her office. 

She followed him to the main door and locked it behind him before returning to her desk. Typewriter moved to the edge to give her space, she opened the plastic container and let the scent of slow-cooked beef fill her nose. The food demanded wine, so she grabbed a half-finished bottle of unlabelled red and poured it into the same glass she had used earlier. She picked up the fork and let her hand hover over the food before deciding to remove her shirt and tie first; whatever the sauce was, it would definitely leave a stain. 

Seated at her desk in just her bra and and trousers, Margo devoured the Osso Bucco. It lived up to the excessive praise the kid had given it, and she would have to find a way to get more in the future. 

The half-finished bottle of wine came closer to being empty. She knew she should clear up the room before she reached the point where she didn’t care, but she poured another glass before she even realized what she was doing. Ready to relax and get comfortable, Margo threw her legs onto the desk and settled in with her glass. She adjusted her position in the chair and heard a rustling sound from her pocket. Investigating the source of the noise, she pulled out the cash, telegram and Todd’s original note. 

The cash went in her drawer. It should have gone into the safe, but that was on the other side of the room, and she was comfortable where she sat. She re-read the telegram before discarding it on the desk to focus on the note instead. There was so much information that Eliot left out. The missing man was twenty-four, only a few years younger than she was, but his friend, Julia, seemed to think he wasn’t the type to look after himself. He had been out west for just over two months, doing research for a screenplay about a fantasy land and the author who created it, and the last time Julia heard from him was three days ago. 

Maybe she did have real investigation work that Todd could do. He seemed to be great at taking down notes. Far better than Eliot, who preferred talking to listening. Her paid assistant was more suited to being out on the street, gathering intelligence rather than interpreting it. She’d have to think about it again in the morning. The combination of food, wine and a long day caused her eyelids to become heavy, and before long she fell asleep in her chair.


	2. Chapter 2

The next morning, the sound of fizzing startled Margo from her slumber. A new glass had been placed before her on the desk, where she had spent the night asleep in her bra and trousers. Her mouth was sticky from the wine, yet her throat was dry and coarse, and she feared she’d slept with her mouth open. Desperate for the relief that only medicine could give her, she snatched the glass of dissolved aspirin and drank it all before she even realized that someone else had put it there for her. 

“Good morning, Bambi.” She looked up to see Eliot standing over her, a devilish smile on his face as he used the nickname he picked out for her. It was a reference to her supposed doe eyes, but in the fog of her brain, she could hardly keep her lids open. “Have a big night did we?” 

It took Margo a few more moments to work out that she had been caught sleeping and eating in the office. Half a bottle of wine shouldn't have knocked her out, but when combined with the lack of shut-eye she’d had over the previous nights, it was more potent than usual. 

Having caught her gaze, Eliot waved his hand around in vaguely concerned gestures. “While I would love to know what all ‘this’ is about,” he said, eyebrow raised high with questions that would most certainly go unanswered. “You have to make yourself decent,” Eliot gently ordered her around. “What I found out last night is somehow more interesting than seeing you half naked, sleeping in your office.” 

With her glass returned to the table, Margo straightened in her chair. Falling asleep at her desk left a visible dent in her back and a pain that ran right up her side. At least her unconscious self had the good mind to take her feet off the desk, so she hadn’t lost all feeling in her legs. After a beat to stretch her arms over her head, she stood and made her way to the clean suit Todd brought up the night before. 

The plastic wrap that protected her dry cleaning easily tore away under her nails to reveal another black and white ensemble. For a moment, Margo wished she could apply more color to her work wardrobe, but she remembered that she had to be more practical than most. Getting people to take her seriously in a role that she was considered ill-equipped for, purely by virtue of her sex, was already hard enough—she had to look every bit the part of the hardened investigator. Feminine colors would only make it harder to get even the small number of clients she worked for. 

Behind her, Eliot had already cleared most of the mess on her desk. He left the room momentarily, only to return with two steaming cups of coffee. Taking a seat in the armchair in front of the desk, he pulled a flask from his pocket and poured a generous helping of something alcoholic into his drink. While he waited for her to change, he relaxed into the chair and sipped his coffee.

Paying no mind to his presence, Margo unzipped her trousers and slipped them off her legs. Down to her underwear, she opened the buttons of the shirt and jacket to find her clean pants. There was no need for her to rush or be modest; it was nothing Eliot hadn’t seen before, and only barely something he was interested in. The new trousers had wide legs and buttoned up high on her waist. Hardly her favorite style, but they were clean and pressed; she had no choice when her wardrobe was miles away. Following with the shirt, she tucked the white linen into her pants, taking care to pull it back out enough so that it billowed fashionably about her waist. 

Other than her shoes, which could wait, only one item was missing. Margo took a quick glance around the room and saw Eliot had produced her tie, dangling it from his fingers in a way that seemed far too similar to the way one might tease a cat with a toy. 

“Looking for this?” He asked, basking in the rare position of power over her. Margo dipped her head in acceptance and Eliot stood, leaving his coffee at the desk. He pulled out the knot left in her tie and wrapped the black silk tightly around his arm to smooth out the kinks. With an easy step, he closed the gap between them and let the tie unravel before her. He flicked it over his shoulder and used both of his hands to turn her collar up. Margo felt his thumbs glide gently along her jawline, angling her chin so she could look him in the eyes. She tensed to avoid melting into his touch, but she was helpless against the intensity of his gaze. “If this is where you plan to stay tonight, you’re coming home with me. No arguments about it,” he said firmly as he wiped what she could only assume was mascara from beneath her eyes. “You’re still so pretty, even with your raccoon eyes,” he added to lighten the mood before he took the tie back in his hands and brought it around her neck. Making short work of it, he easily knotted the tie into a Half-Windsor, the kind she preferred and far less complicated than the Ascot he decided to wear that day. Finishing up, Eliot placed his thumb just below the knot and gently tightened it around her neck, taking care to leave a dimple. 

Margo took his hand before he could return to his seat and linked her fingers with his own. She hoped it was a loud enough expression of her gratitude and a conditional agreement to his offer of accommodation. 

Satisfied they could move on, she released him and made her way over to her chair. Margo sat down and inhaled the hot coffee. It was exactly what she needed to feel like herself. “Alright, give me what you found,” she said, finally alert enough to get down to business. 

Eliot dropped back into his chair and crossed his legs. Long fingers reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out a black and gold matchbook and what looked like a ticket for a checked coat. Without a word, he flicked them down on the desk. 

“And, what is so interesting about this particular matchbook?” She asked. A matchbook could tell a lot about a person, but every smoker and their pet had one; it would take more than it’s a presence to be a useful clue. 

“Look at them properly,” he said, sliding the items closer to her side of the desk. 

Margo picked up the matchbook first. The gold printing resembled some kind of crest featuring an oddly shaped key with an insect in the middle. If it was supposed to make sense to her, it didn’t, and she wished that Eliot would just explain its significance rather than force her to play guessing games. His job was to make solving cases easier, not make them more infuriating.

“It’s a place called Brakebills,” he sighed. “A buddy of mine works there.” For someone not from Los Angeles, he sure knew a lot of people all over the city. “I went there once, through the back door, of course,” he continued with a slight frown and a hint of jealousy in his voice. “It’s the West Coast satellite club for a handful Ivy League schools...filled to the brim by trust fund boys with endless connections who go there to throw around money until they find their way into Hollywood or Congress,” he explained. The more he spoke, his words became clipped, as if he couldn’t spit them out fast enough. For a moment she could almost see the Indiana farm boy he had all but left behind. 

“Okay, but that’s not surprising given the cash being dropped to find him,” she cut him down, still not convinced. Eliot frowned and took out a cigarette. He tapped it on the desk while Margo picked up the ticket and saw the name of the man they were looking for, followed by Monday’s date. 

“That’s the last time anyone at the boarding house saw him,” he explained. He grabbed a Zippo from his pocket and flicked open it a handful of times before it produced a flame. “That’s not the most interesting part though,” he said before he placed the cigarette between his lips. Watching him light the end, Margo grew irritated that he was still playing games, forcing her to work out what he was getting at instead of just telling her. Eliot drew the smoke into his lungs while he waited for her to work it out. When she didn’t, he exhaled and decided to give her a hint. “Look at the inside of the book,” Eliot said, the anticipation for her reaction evident in his eyes. 

Alice Quinn. 6pm. Margo didn’t need to read it aloud. She held in a gasp as the name sent a shiver down her spine. “You think it’s the same family as the case from ‘45?” She asked, not wanting to know the answer. If it meant what she thought it meant, Eliot was entirely too blasé.

Everyone in LA knew about the Quinn case from Fall ‘45. A young man, fresh out from Chicago went missing up in the Hollywood Hills. Well connected parents spent thousands and used up all their society favors to have him found, but after three years all they got for it was a severed finger and his class ring. Hanson & Associates wasn’t asked to work the case. Back then Margo and the recently hired Eliot were too small fry for the Quinn family to even consider engaging their services. Looking for the son was left to the LAPD, but that didn’t mean Margo hadn’t kept up with the details. 

People still speculated it was a ransom kidnapping gone wrong, but there had always been something fishy to Margo about the way it was handled. A few prominent resignations and an obvious press gag in the wake of their failure left a bad taste in her mouth. If Quentin had become involved with anything even remotely connected to that case, she feared there was a good chance he might never be found. 

“There is only one way to find out,” Eliot interrupted her thoughts by putting out the cigarette. He stood up, gathering the coffee cups and her empty glass. “Only we’re not getting inside with your hair like that,” he said, pointing to her sleep knotted hair before he stepped outside to the waiting room. 

Margo raked her fingers through her hair; It wasn’t as bad he insinuated, but she knew he was right. She had to do something about it before they left to investigate. She separated her locks into two sections and tied them together in a knot at the base of her head. Looking up, she saw Eliot had returned and held out her shoes. She smiled at him as she wrapped the remaining hair around the knot and held it back with a handful of metal pins. “Happy?” 

“With you Margo, I’m positively radiant,” he returned the smile. Rounding the desk, he gestured for her to turn towards him. Eliot kneeled on the ground before her and took her left heel in his hand. He angled the brogue over her toes and onto her foot. “What would you do without me?” he asked playfully as he pulled the laces tight. 

Margo placed a hand on his shoulder and leaned towards him. The scent of his cologne filled her nose; lavender and vanilla with a hint of bergamot. Eliot was always a relief from the general notes of leather and orange that followed every other perfumed man she encountered. Acutely aware of their proximity, she brushed her cheek against his soft, freshly shaved skin. He loosened his posture under her grip, and she angled her head towards the nape of his neck. “Oh El,” she whispered against his jawline as she grabbed her second shoe. “Without you, I would get so much more work done.” Margo snapped her body back into the chair, quickly shoved the shoe onto her bare foot and stood before him. “Though you do look so very pretty on your knees,” she winked, before brushing past him with an affectionate pat on his head.

“One day you’ll come in, and I won’t be here to look after you,” he warned. Already at the door, Margo took her jacket and watched as he subtly winced when he pushed himself up off the ground. 

“You always say that, and yet here you are,” Margo quipped. “Now come on, let’s go meet this ‘buddy’ of yours.”


	3. Chapter 3

Brakebills was closed when they arrived. 

Margo tapped her toes on the concrete footpath and cursed her enthusiasm for chasing down leads. Had she known they would be waiting, she would have stopped to fix her makeup before leaving the office, rather than settle for the hasty job she did in the taxi cab. 

Unfazed by the delay, Eliot leaned against the side of the building, pulled out his pocket watch and checked the time. He hummed an unfamiliar tune as he put it back and swapped it for his cigarette case, offering one to Margo before taking another for himself. “My buddy should be starting his shift soon,” he said, flicking open his Zippo and lighting the end of his cigarette. 

Nodding, Margo took the lighter and lit her own. Her thumb rubbed over the engraving in the silver. “Since we got time, you should tell me what this means,” she said, pointing to the image of a skull wearing a crown, sitting on a bed of roses. 

“Remind me what is on it?” He asked jokingly, avoiding an answer like he had so many times. Eliot lifted up his arm for Margo to throw the lighter back to him and easily caught it in his palm. 

“You know what is on it,” she replied. It could have meant nothing, many of them did, but the way he dodged her question just intrigued her more. 

“ _Le Roi est mort_.” He looked down at the lighter and sighed. Perhaps pressing him for an answer was a bad idea. Besides, she had enough secrets of her own to fill a bank vault, if he didn’t want to tell her, he had every right to his privacy. 

“ _Lang leve de Koning._ ” A second, far more jovial, male voice spoke from behind her, seemingly in reply to whatever it was that Eliot said. Boarding school taught her Latin, and her childhood nanny taught her Spanish; whatever languages the men spoke, they weren’t familiar. 

“Hoberman,” Eliot called out, reignited with the enthusiasm her question had drained from him. 

“Look at you, still a fucking Beanpole!” Hoberman replied, passing Margo without a second glance to embrace Eliot. 

“You know I hate that name,” he said quietly but accepted the embrace with a vigor that surprised her. Eliot was a tactile man, but his enthusiasm was left to select situations. She noted the ease with which the men touched; it was almost familial. Though, as an only child, all she could go off was observation rather than experience. “Good to see you, buddy,” Eliot added, patting a hand to Hoberman’s shoulder. 

After more than a minute, they finally let go, and Hoberman turned to face her. Significantly shorter than Eliot and soft where her assistant was lean, he had an open and friendly face hidden beneath thick black rimmed glasses. “You must be the boss lady,” he said and held out his hand for her to shake. “Josh Hoberman, at your service.”

Margo put the cigarette to her lips and inhaled slowly. Being addressed as ‘boss lady’ had her want to make a scene. Still, he persisted and kept his hand out, waiting for her to finish her drag. She exhaled and blew the smoke between them. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Eliot shake his head with a smirk. Being predictable was not what she planned. Switching the cigarette to her left hand, she took Josh’s outstretched hand and shook firmly. 

Josh’s eyes widened at her grip, but he grinned and held on as long as she did. “Your man here was the best supply sergeant I ever met.”

“Her man?” Eliot tried to interrupt, but Josh continued to speak. 

“I don’t know how he did it, but he kept us flush with Lucky Strikes and Hershey Bars when every other company ran out,” Josh said, patting Eliot on the shoulder. 

“Margo and I-“

“With your record, you could have got a job with anyone, but you picked the only lady Private Dick I’ve ever seen,” Josh butted in to stop Eliot from speaking and flashed Margo a smile. “And now that I see her, oh boy do I get it.”

Unsure if she was justified in her dislike, or if the headache she was still struggling with made her more irascible than usual, Margo stepped forward. “If you’re going to talk about me like I’m not here,” she started, spitting the words through gritted teeth. Catching Eliot’s eyes as they rolled into the back of his head, she re-evaluated her reaction. To curb her frustration, she brought the cigarette to her lips and took a short drag.

“No disrespect, ma’am,” he said quickly. Their eyes met for a brief moment before he turned his back and walked away. Margo bridled at his laissez faire attitude. Rounding the building, he waved for them follow him. “Come on, I gotta get started in the kitchen, but you can come in through the back and do whatever it is you do.”

Taking a final drag of her cigarette, Margo held back from following him until she had a chance to calm down. Eliot placed a hand on her back, instinctively knowing that she was pissed off. “Ignore him. Hoberman’s always thought of himself as a comedian.”

“He’s an asshole,” Margo said through the haze of smoke she blew around them. 

“He’s also one of my closest friends and can get us inside a club that neither of us has the ‘credentials’ for.”

Margo huffed and dropped her cigarette to the ground. She crushed it underfoot and held out her arm for Eliot to take. He copied her actions before he linked their arms. Together they followed Josh through the back entrance to the club to a dark, empty kitchen. Ahead of them, Josh flicked on the lights and performed a twirl with his arms outstretched.

“Mijn keuken is jouw keuken,” Josh said happily as he opened the cool room door.

“I still don’t speak Dutch,” Eliot called out.

“Not for lack of my teaching,” Josh replied. He rustled about inside the room, and Margo felt her patience wear thin. Reemerging with a side of beef over his shoulder, Josh made room for himself on a bench. 

The sound of semi-frozen flesh slammed on the counter made Margo ill, but she managed to keep her calm. Once the pleasantries had been completed, she could search for the missing jacket and find out more on the last known movements of her missing person. Their client was scheduled to arrive that afternoon, and Margo wanted to have an update for her; she was paying enough money for it. 

“Hey, Beanpole, look at this piece of shit,” Josh said, pointing to the side of beef. Eliot winced at the nickname but still looked to where Josh had indicated. “If you ever get sick of playing detective, our buyer can’t tell a New York cut from a rump, and you know how much that hurts me,” Josh begged, his hands out before him in supplication. “I need you, brother.”

As he spoke, Margo’s patience continued to wear dangerously thin. On instinct, Eliot held out his arm to stop her, but he was too late. She was already past him, Josh’s collar gripped in her hands. She pulled his head down to her level and gritted her teeth. 

“Listen up, Hoberman,” she spat, staring him down. “I get that you two are friends and you like to play around, but Eliot and I, we got some serious work to do.” Margo stepped even closer, practically breathing down his neck. “A man is missing, and the only information that we have on him is that he was here on Monday, with a girl named Alice Quinn. So are you going to start helping, or do I have to have to tear this fucking place apart?” Convinced she made her point, Margo released him and took a step back. She placed her hand on her hip and tapped her foot, urging him to get on with helping them.

“Woah, I’m just playing around—though my buyer really is useless,” Josh responded, unfazed by her aggression. “Look, I don’t see a lot of what goes on out of the kitchen, but when he called me this morning, Eliot said you had a coat check ticket? The Front of House Manager, Henry, he can help you out with that.”

“When does he get here?” Margo asked. 

“When does who get here?” A new voice boomed from behind them. “How many times must I tell you, Mr. Hoberman, that you are not to conduct your drug deals inside the walls of this establishment?”

They turned to see an attractive, middle-aged, black man in a sharp suit enter the kitchen. For a moment, he appeared a vision of authority with an ice-cold stare, but the image was quickly shattered by his fingers shaking while he fumbled with his pocket square. 

“No deals, Henry,” Josh replied before slamming his butchers' knife into the leg joint of the beef. “This is my man Eliot Waugh, and his lady boss, Ms. Hanson. They’re looking into a missing person, a guy who was here Monday, maybe more times. I figured we could help.”

“Police?” Henry asked. Giving up on the square, he shoved it into his breast pocket. His face flashed with a hint of worry before it returned to his stony stare. Margo filed it in the back of her mind to look into the relationship between Brakebills and the force. It probably meant nothing to her case, but there was something in his reaction that had her wanting answers. 

“Private investigators,” Eliot replied, with a quick glance at Margo. He shot her a look that told her he too had picked up on something worth investigating, though she couldn’t know what it was. 

“You talk to us now,” Margo said, laying everything out to the manager. “We find the guy. If he doesn’t stay missing, then you don’t need to deal with the cops at all.”

Before she knew what was happening, Eliot stood between her and Henry. She watched as Eliot pulled out the man’s pocket square and folded it in half. 

“And if I tell you to get out of my club right now?” Henry asked. He wasn’t stopping Eliot, but the frown on his face suggested he didn’t quite appreciate the invasion of personal space either. 

“Then-“ Margo started. 

“You won’t though, will you Henry?” Eliot interrupted, gently patting the side of the manager’s jacket. Margo glared at her assistant, but he wouldn’t catch her eye. All Eliot’s focus was on Henry. Finished folding the square into a double triangle, he gently placed it in Henry’s breast pocket and stepped back with a tiny, unexpectedly comforting grin.

“Fine,” Henry said, retreating to the door that she assumed led to the club. “What do you need? And make it quick, I have a club to prepare.” He pushed the door open and held it for her to pass through first. 

“We’re looking for a jacket,” she said, looking to Eliot who hadn't moved from his position. His eyes slowly moved from her to Henry and on to Josh, before he ever so slightly raised his left brow. Margo knew instantly that he had a theory to chase. To keep Henry off Eliot’s trail, she took him by the arm as she made her way through the doorway. “The jacket was left here on Monday,” she softened her tone from earlier. “I just need to check if it’s still in your cloakroom.” 

After switching on the lights, Henry led her through the throng of unmade tables and upturned chairs. The club was on the smaller side, but tastefully decorated. Leather booths lined the edges of the room, separated from the tables by a row of simple, wooden Tuscan columns. A low stage hid in the far corner, barely large enough for a five-piece band. 

The cloakroom was at the opposite end of the room. Henry gestured for her to enter and stood back as she pushed through to search for anything that matched the details on the ticket. “If your jacket is not in the back, it’s not here,” Henry said curtly, leaving her alone in the claustrophobic space. 

None of the hangers corresponded to the number on the ticket. Of course, it couldn’t be easy. Margo hated grunt work. She wished they brought Todd along to search through the handful of jackets left behind, he would love that kind of task. Removing coats from their hangers, Margo checked for a name sewn into the lining—the sign of a good Ivy League boy. Most of the coats belonged to ‘Junior’ this and ‘the Third’ that, but still no ‘Coldwater.’ Only one jacket stood out, hung off the coat hanger with the number right before the ticket Eliot found in their missing person’s boarding house. A not quite navy blue blazer with white piping and ornate gold buttons, it featured an open book with Hebrew script on the breast pocket. Beneath the image read the words Lux et Veritas. That was something she understood. ‘Light and Truth.’ She could have done with both. Margo looked inside the blazer. At one point there had been a name embroidered into the lining, but the threads had come undone with excessive wear. She could just make out the initial ‘J,’ followed by indistinguishable letters that most likely made up a surname. 

While Margo pondered whether the jacket was relevant to the case, she heard a disturbance outside the cloakroom. Leaving the jacket on the floor, she made her way to the doorway. Hidden in the shadows, she watched as Henry argued with a most likely masculine, but definitely exasperated voice. The second person appeared to be outside the club, while Henry held the front door ajar, refusing to let them in. From her vantage, Margo could only see the brown, tattooed hand of the stranger, gripping the door to keep it as far open as possible. 

“Come back with a warrant, Officer,” Henry said, an element of sarcasm in his voice at the last word. The club manager had almost as much pent-up anger as she did. He closed the door with some force, ignoring the hand that still held on. Margo winced at the expectation of a sound of pain, but nothing came. 

Using Henry’s confusion to his advantage, the unknown police officer pushed the door open, only a few inches but enough for a long trail of light to illuminate the area. “When I come back to search this place, you’ll wish you let me in, asshole,” he said. 

Margo tried to get a better view when he removed his hand from the doorway. As soon as it was clear, Henry slammed the front door shut. He pressed his palm against the dark wood and breathed deeply for a few moments. Margo took the opportunity to resume her fruitless search in the cloakroom. She didn’t want him to know she had been spying. 

Confident she had given it enough time as to avoid suspicion, Margo made a mental note of the one jacket that interested her and stepped outside of the cloakroom. “Thank you,” she said quietly to get Henry’s attention without startling him. 

“Find what you were looking for?” He asked in a droll tone, his lack of care for her investigation obvious. He turned from the door and faced her down. 

“No, whoever looks after your coat check should be fired,” she replied, taking a guess that being dismissive of his staff would be the trick to getting him on her side. There were still a few more questions she needed to ask, and he was the only one that could answer them. 

Henry ignored her and went back to preparing the club. A handful of waitstaff in formal attire entered through the back and Margo waited impatiently while Henry instructed them on their jobs for the day. “We open in one hour for lunch service,” he said, “you know the drill.”

Margo reached into her bag and pulled out a well-worn ring bound notebook. While she waited for her chance to ask Henry what he knew about Quentin Coldwater and Alice Quinn, she sketched out the badge on the blazer and wrote down the little she had learned. Hopefully, Eliot was having more luck with the joker in the kitchen. 

“Hey,” she finally said, fed up with waiting. “Hey!” 

“I gave you access to the cloakroom. Now you can leave.”

“That’s not how this goes,” she said with enough force that the staff ceased their work to stare at her. “What do you know of the names Quentin Coldwater and Alice Quinn?” She asked, carefully to make sure that everyone in the room could hear. “I know they were both here on Monday evening.”

“Do I look like a man who pays attention to every person that comes into this club,” Henry snapped, trying to dismiss her. 

“Yeah, you do,” she waved him off. So far nothing he had provided her with gave her the impression he was helpful, though she was starting to believe that he knew more than he was letting on. Margo knew too many men like him. Too self-important to assist someone like her with anything unless forced at proverbial gunpoint. Or literal—she could work with that but at another time. With fewer witnesses. 

“I remember the girl,” a Japanese man with greying hair at the temples stepped forward. “She used to ask about her brother, but until Monday, I hadn’t seen her in months.”

“Her brother, Charlie Quinn?” Margo already knew she was correct. She could see it on the faces of the staff, all nodding slowly—almost guiltily, as if they were familiar with the missing Quinn sibling, and not just from the papers. 

“March, don’t you have linens to pick up from the dry cleaner?” Henry stepped between her and the one person willing to help her. “You have what you need, Ms. Hanson. Leave. Now.”

Margo knew when she’d used up her time. There was nothing more that she would be able to pry out of the staff, not with their boss in the mood that had overcome him since his altercation with the unknown officer. She scribbled a note for herself to look into a police officer with tattooed fingers. There couldn’t be more than one—not with the strict rules they had on appearance. Shoving the notebook back into her bag, she made her way back to the kitchen, where she found Eliot and Josh reminiscing about some town in Holland. Margo grabbed Eliot by the arm and dragged him away from his friend. “Next time I see you, don’t be so much of a dick,” she said to Josh with a final look back.


	4. Chapter 4

Back at the office, she found Todd at the front desk again, looking like he had hardly slept. His normally bouncy curls laid flat, and the bags under his eyes almost matched her own. Whatever was going on in his home life that forced him to work so many hours was taking its toll. 

“Good, uh, day, Ms. Hanson, Mr. Waugh,” he said checking his watch with a curious smile. Somehow he was still enthusiastic in his work despite his fatigue. 

“Hello, Todd,” Eliot said, glancing at Margo with a roll of his eyes. He always was unnecessarily antagonistic to Todd. Usually, Margo wouldn’t care about the one-sided feud, but Todd had been so kind to her the previous evening—and he was always so helpful. She gave him a wave before she nudged Eliot. 

“Give the kid some slack,” she said quietly. 

“Mr. Waugh, when I finish writing those notes about the papers you gave me, I’ll bring them up,” Todd called out as they reached the stairs. 

Confused, Margo looked first at Todd before her eyes settled on Eliot. “Papers?”

Eliot dodged her question and made his way over to Todd. He pulled a scratched money clip from his pocket and counted out a few dollars. “Bring us some sandwiches when you do. The good ones, from the Greek deli on the corner.” He slapped the money down in front of Todd, turned on his heels and returned to Margo without so much as blinking. They walked in near silence up to the office; the jangle of keys the only noise as Eliot unlocked the door. 

Safely inside, Margo shut the door behind them. She wrapped her fingers around Eliot’s wrist and walked around to she face him. “What the hell was that?” She demanded. 

“What was what?” He played coy. 

“Was it a script?” She asked, trying to keep her cool. “You can’t keep making him read those without paying him.”

“Your accusation wounds me,” he said with a huff. “What Todd wants to do with his free time is up to him.” Eliot easily escaped her grip. He casually took off his jacket and removed his hat. “It was a script though.” Eliot’s smirk lacked its usual intensity. “Written by Quentin Coldwater.” For a split second his face softened before it was replaced with smug self-assuredness. “I figured Todd could read it for us and see if there was anything relevant to finding our missing person.”

“Oh,” Margo dropped her gaze to her shoes. 

“And the kid could use the money.” Eliot gave her an almost tender grin as she looked back up to him, eyes wide. “Don’t look so shocked. Just because I don’t care, doesn’t mean I don’t know what is happening—he talks about it enough.”

Unsure of what to say, Margo followed Eliot’s lead and removed her outer layers. Hanging them by the door, she took a seat on one of the chairs in the outer office—the comfortable one they usually reserved for clients and gestured for him to join her. 

“My sincerest apologies,” she said, with only the slightest hint of sarcasm in her tone. She was sorry for doubting, but that didn’t mean she was happy to admit it. “So where are we at?” Margo changed the topic to business, something she felt infinitely more comfortable with. 

“Nowhere, essentially, ” he said, taking a seat across from her. ”Other than the cryptic clue you told me about on the ride back, we have nothing new.”

“You never said why you stayed in the kitchen?” Margo crossed one leg over the other and relaxed into the chair. She had done all the talking on their way back to the office, mostly complaining about how insufferable Henry had been. 

“Oh, that.” Eliot could be so vague. 

“Yes, that. You were so…'odd’ there,” she said. “I almost got a little jealous of the way you were touching him,” Margo lied. She would never be jealous of those of the receiving end of Eliot’s thinly veiled seduction techniques. 

Eliot reached forward and stroked her knee with his index finger. “You, jealous?” He leaned back and smiled. Slipping his hand inside his vest, he produced his flask and took a short sip. He offered it to Margo, only for her to decline; it was barely midday.

“Just tell me, okay.”

“He’s an alcoholic—at the very least,” Eliot said without the slightest hint of irony as he fondled the flask in his hand. “Josh said he’s also seen Fogg and his girlfriend dabble with dope, but who is he to judge?” Eliot spoke lazily as if it all should have been evident although he had needed to confirm it himself. 

“So he’s a little Bogart, without the charisma,” Margo said. “Doesn’t excuse him for being a dick.”

They stared at each other for a single heartbeat. Letting out a deep laugh, Margo was the first to break before Eliot giggled at her quip. The remnants of tension between them dissolved. It was so easy to be on edge during a case, particularly when there was more at stake than the sanctity of some high society marriage. Picking up a missing person case was a rarity for them, but in their limited experience, they knew they had to work to keep the levity, lest the seriousness of the situation bring them down. 

When the laughter died down, Margo heaved a sigh. Hands on the armrests of her chair, she pushed herself up and walked over to Eliot. Placing a hand on his shoulder, she squeezed lightly and gave him a quick peck on the cheek—a minor pick me up before the inevitable darkness of her next logical step. 

“I’m going over everything I have on the Quinn case,” she said, her voice deep with reluctance. She would need more laughter and frivolity soon. “Go help Todd with the manuscript,” she added, “he probably has no idea what to look for.”

“I so hate when you pull rank,” Eliot said, clasping her hand that rested on his shoulder. She slipped from his grasp and made her way to her office, closing the door behind her. Margo waited by the door until she heard Eliot get up and leave the room, the door closing heavily behind him. Whether or not he would help or hinder Todd’s efforts to make notes on Quentin Coldwater’s script was a mystery to her. 

After retrieving a key from the top drawer of her desk, Margo unlocked her filing cabinet and thumbed through her folders. Finding the Quinn file, her fingers hovered, reluctant to remove it from the cabinet. Breathing deeply, she gathered her courage—it wasn’t like there was much in there anyway. Margo snatched the file and took it with her to her desk. 

For the better part of an hour, Margo poured over news clippings on the mysterious disappearance of Charlie Quinn. Nothing felt helpful, or relevant to her case. Article after article about how little anyone knew, or how hard the LAPD was working to find out what happened. Ready to give up, Margo noticed a profile on Charlie Quinn, complete with a photo of this whole family. The parents seemed barely aware of their children, who stood off to the side, holding hands. Alice, the sister, the same Alice who was no doubt connected to her own missing person case, held an icy stare while she leaned into her brother’s side. 

Just like the brotherly connection she saw between Eliot and Josh at Brakebills, the way Charlie and Alice held on to each other was something Margo had never known. However, the distance between the children and their parents—that was something she was intimately familiar with. 

Lost in memories of a long-buried childhood, Margo was startled when the door burst open. Eliot stood smiling in the doorway, his long arms pushing up the top of the frame as if he were the support. “Find anything?”

“What? Oh, nothing yet,” she said vaguely, gathering her bearings after the interruption. “Just a reminder of police incompetence,” she added with her usual snark. Talking down about the LAPD was always sure to perk her back up. “You?”

“Todd’s still working his way through the script,” Eliot said, letting go of the doorway to meet her at the desk. “It’s...very dry,” he sighed. “Shame, I was hoping when we found Coldwater, I could talk my way into a role—but that film is never going to be made,” he sighed again, this time with his entire body. “A talking bear, what was he thinking?” 

Margo threw him a blank stare. 

“What?” He rolled his eyes. “You didn’t read it.”

“You can make fun of him when we find him,” she said. A loud rumble escaped her stomach; she hadn’t eaten all day. Checking her watch, Margo saw that it was getting into the afternoon. “What happened to those sandwiches you were going to make Todd get?”

“My dear, why don’t you come out here and see for yourself?” Eliot said, disappearing through the doorway with a half skip. 

“You better not be playing with my heart,” she said, only half joking. Margo might have been starving, but that didn’t mean she was willing to eat just anything. 

Following Eliot’s lead, she made her way back to the client seating area of her outer office. In the center of the coffee table, he had set two sandwiches each wrapped in brown wax paper. Beside them, two wine were glasses filled almost to the brim with red wine. 

“Don’t open it yet,” Eliot said as he sat down. Picking up his glass, he took a long sip and leaned back into the chair. Swirling the glass by its stem, his eyes glinted with more than a hint of mischief. “Close your eyes,” he said, his eyebrow lifted so quickly she almost thought it could have been a wink. 

Taking her seat, Margo slowly picked up her own glass. “Are you going to stop me from drinking this too?” She asked, defiance on her face as she took a small sip. 

“Shh,” he said. “No need to be so...you, about it,” he said, the corners of his eyes crinkled with affection. 

If only to humor him, Margo closed her eyes. She sunk into the chair and waited for his performance to begin. 

“Picture fresh baked rye, straight from the oven,” he started. "Slathered in homemade pesto, so garlicky it will make your eyes water." Every word he said had her desperate to fill her stomach with the sandwich before her. "Imported salami; the kind you bribe the customs agents to get—"

"I fucking get it," she said impatiently. Taking her seat, Margo unwrapped the sandwich. The smell of hot salami and pungent, mouth-watering provolone filled the air. She breathed it in, while her stomach rumbled in anticipation. Eliot knew exactly what she liked. The mix of basil and chili burst in her mouth as she tore through her first bite. Melted cheese stretched from her teeth to the sandwich as she pulled it away. All the while, Eliot looked over her like she was an animal at the zoo. 

“Eat your fucking sandwich El,” she mumbled, her mouth still filled with her first bite. Manners were irrelevant in his impolite company, especially when she was starving. 

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, with a grin and not even the slightest hint of respect—she would have to fix that. 

Margo went to take another bite when Todd burst through the front door. Sweating profusely, his hair wild, it appeared as though he had raced up the stairs. 

“An-another,” he panted. “Another call from Ms. Wicker.” 

“Appreciate the commitment Todd, but can you breathe a little quieter? I’m trying to enjoy my lunch,” Eliot said, as he poured himself a second glass of wine. He hadn’t even opened the packaging of his own sandwich, so far sticking to a liquid meal. Any other day, Margo would ignore his drinking habits, but after he brought up the club managers alcoholism, it was more on her mind than ever.

“Sorry, I—it’s important,” Todd said, bringing Margo’s thoughts back to the case. Her concern for Eliot could wait until they found Quentin Coldwater. She put her sandwich down and made her way to the kitchenette sink to pour him a glass of water. Back to the center of the room, she shoved the glass into Todd’s hands and gestured that he drink it. 

“Use your words,” she said, waiting impatiently as he gulped the water down. 

After a few deep breaths, Todd finally explained himself. “I got another call from Ms. Wicker. She missed her connection in Denver and won’t be here until tomorrow.” 

“You ran for that?” Still seated, Eliot tapped his fingers against the edge of his glass. Whatever fondness he had developed for the kid didn’t run deep enough to stop him from tearing Todd down at every point. 

“There’s more,” Todd said in earnest. His eyes were wide, and Margo sensed that the delay was the least of their client's issues. 

“You need to learn how to order your sentences,” Eliot said, unable to hold off from adding his two cents. 

“Her sister spoke to Quentin yesterd—”

“Seriously Todd, lead with the important information!” Margo interrupted, more from shock at the revelation than to berate him. 

“So he’s not missing—the retainer is non-refundable,” Eliot said, with genuine concern at the potential loss of income. “Margo?”

“Yes, wait.” Margo held a hand up silence him. “Spit it out Todd,” she added, placing a hand on his shoulder. “If you have something important to say, interrupt—pussy footing helps no one.” Margo squeezed Todd’s shoulder in an offer of encouragement. Whatever he heard on the phone was the best lead they had. 

“She said that her sister said that Quentin sounded scared.” Todd stopped and took a deep breath before he continued. “He said ‘Everything is a lie,’ and then the phone cut off.” Once he had Quentin’s words out, Todd’s voice trailed off. “Ms. Wicker didn’t say much after that, just that you need to find him, she’ll pay whatever it takes.”

“How much do you have left to read?” Margo said, trying to distract Todd from the gravity of what he told them, even as the gears in her head started spinning to interpret the new information. 

“I finished the script,” Todd said. 

“It’s horrendous.” Once more, Eliot butted in to offer his opinion. 

“It wasn’t—“

“Focus!” Margo yelled and stamped her foot. She didn’t need to feel like a school teacher, not when the person she was tasked to find was in grave danger. 

“Sorry Ms. Hanson,” Todd said, dropping his eyes to his feet. It wasn’t him that she was irritated with, but she appreciated his contrition. 

Eliot ignored them, feigning interest in his fingernails rather than apologize for being petty. 

“I still have the notes to go through though,” Todd explained. “They’re kind of a mess,” he added, looking sheepish as Eliot winked at him. “I’ll finish them soon. I promise.”

With a curt nod, Margo indicated that it was time for Todd to leave. 

“We have nothing,” Margo said as soon as they were alone. She struggled to hide her exasperation. Todd’s words had sent a chill down her spine. It wasn’t conclusive, but it didn’t help her fear that Quentin was caught up in whatever happened to Charlie Quinn. 

“That’s not true,” Eliot said, the sarcasm noticeably absent from his voice for the first time since Todd had interrupted their lunch. “We know he met with Alice Quinn at Brakebills, we know he was writing a script based on some lame fantasy story,” he added.

“Wait...what fantasy story is this?” Margo jumped in, her curiosity piqued at something she should have already been aware of. 

“Something about Worlds and Walls, it was all rather implausible,” Eliot said. 

“The World in the Walls?”

“That’s probably it.”

“I know that book,” she said, angry that she hadn’t looked into it sooner. It was a book written for children, but she had read it not long after it was published at the request of a little girl found almost 100 miles from home. Her last missing person case. That one had turned out positive—she silently prayed this would too. 

“Any good? — Not that I’d read it,” Eliot grinned, before he looked at her face. She tried to hide whatever emotions were so obviously plastered over her face, but it was no use. 

“No—I mean yes,” Margo said as she paced the room. “The author, he moved here a few years ago, from England.”

“That’s interesting.”

“Eliot,” she said warily. 

“I was being genuine,” he held his hand to his chest. Something in his expression was almost sincere. 

“It’s not that...I have to go see someone,” Margo said, grabbing her jacket and hat from the rack. “Help Todd with the last of the notes, we need to know who Quentin has been in contact with since he came out here and those notes are the only thing we have to go off.”

“Yes, ma’am.” 

“Eliot…” 

“I’ll help him,” Eliot said, reassuring Margo with a comforting smile before she closed the door behind her.


	5. Chapter 5

Red neon lights buzzed in the window of a small suburban diner. Quaint, in that touristy way, but far from any guided tour, Margo stood outside and took it in. White paint flaked off the doorframe, and Margo wondered how long since it had last been refreshed. She thought about anything, just to avoid the way her resolve seemed to flicker in the same way the lights did. Constant, but with the ever-looming threat of blowing out. 

Margo knew exactly who she had to see for more information on the book that her missing person based his screenplay on. Unfortunately, to get to them, Margo had to enlist the help of someone who wanted nothing to do with her. Pulling her compact out from her handbag, Margo checked that her makeup was perfect—or as perfect as it could be considering where she had woken up. A quick adjustment made to her lip color, from the neutral beige she had worn to the club earlier that day to a rich crimson, and she was ready. Margo knew she was ostentatious. She needed to be.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” A familiar voice growled at her from the front door of the diner. 

Margo looked up from her compact to see a mass of dark curls flopped over the face of her ex-girlfriend, Kady Orloff-Diaz. Dressed in a pale blue waitress uniform, she stood with her feet shoulder width apart, ready for a fight; five feet and seven intense inches of pure anger and resentment. All of it aimed directly at Margo. 

“Shouldn’t that be up in a hair net?” Margo snapped her compact closed and placed it back in her bag. “Wouldn’t want someone to choke on it.” Despite her best intentions, it was too easy to reply to Kady’s anger with snark. 

“Like you care if someone chokes,” Kady spat back, running her hand through her hair to keep it off her face. 

“So that’s a no on you forgetting then?” Margo said, taking a step forward to gauge Kady’s reaction. They parted on less than ideal terms—Margo sneaking out in the night, unable to deal with what their relationship entailed. 

“I don’t forget that easy,” The anger still raged in Kady’s voice as she copied Margo. Only a few steps between them, there was a genuine chance of one of them ending up bruised. Whether that would be skin or merely ego, they would soon find out. 

“You know, I am really sorry,” Margo said as she tried to soften her voice. Kady was the only one that could help get her in to see the person who could give her answers. She had to start being the adult.

“Fuck you, leave me alone.”

“Can’t,” Margo said, putting her hands on her hips. It was impossible to remain stoic in the face of Kady’s unwavering fury. “Need a favor,” she added. Realizing her pose was not helping, she dropped her arms, leaned one side and hoped it would work. 

“No.” It was Kady’s turn to throw her hands to her hips, her pose far more aggressive than Margo’s. 

“It’s for a case,” Margo said, further softening her tone. Fighting with Kady, though enjoyable, wasn’t getting her where she needed to be. “A young man has been missing for at least two da—“

“Let me guess,” Kady interrupted. Arms folded across her chest, she sighed reluctantly. Margo was banking on her ex having more empathy than she remembered, and it seemed like her hope wasn’t entirely misplaced. “You want to speak to Harriet, and you still haven’t bothered to learn how to sign,” Kady added, knowing exactly why she was needed. 

“She reads lips, what’s the point?” Margo said, immediately undoing all the work she had done being professional. 

“So you’re still a bitch then,” Kady uncrossed her arms. There was something in her eye—a challenge, or maybe just a premonition of Margo being reamed out by the person she really needed to see. 

Margo stepped forward, right up to Kady’s chin. “You fucking bet I am.” For a split second, Margo felt the pride and resentment between them turn her on. Even though she knew better than to let herself get taken in, she wanted to grab Kady by the back of the neck and bring her down for a kiss. 

“Eugh,” Kady turned away just in time to bring Margo back to her senses. “I will help you, but only so you owe me one,” she added, throwing her head back toward Margo. “My shift ends in twenty. Don’t come inside. Just—do whatever it is that you do.”

After twenty minutes of waiting, it seemed that Kady was going to be longer than she originally anticipated. Finding a bar across the road, Margo sat on a glass of whiskey, neat. She swirled her finger around the top of the glass and cursed herself for not finding another way to get access to Kady’s contact. 

Finding a reporter in Los Angeles was almost as easy as finding an aspiring actor. In a city where films were made, and gangsters ruled, there was never a shortage of stories or someone to write them down. The problem was finding someone objective. Freedom of the press only went so far as to their freedom to take bribes from Jack Warner to Mickey Cohen and every asshole in between. With her gut telling her that the Quinn case had something to do with Quentin Coldwater’s disappearance, Margo didn’t need information from someone with a mysterious backer. She needed someone she could trust. Unfortunately for her, the most objective reporter in Los Angeles didn’t like private detectives. 

“Fucking Kady,” Margo mumbled to herself, incensed by the wasted time. 

“You wish you still were,” Kady’s voice came from behind her. 

Tossing back her whiskey, Margo turned to see Kady had changed out of her uniform into a pair of denim jeans and a plain linen shirt. Sleeves rolled up to her elbows, she looked as if she’d just finished a shift at a munitions factory rather than a diner. It suited her—not that Margo would say it out loud. 

“Call us a cab would you?” Margo ordered the bartender she’d barely looked at once her drink had arrived and placed a note on the bar to pay for his services. 

“Not going to buy me a beer first?” Kady asked, the sarcasm almost as thick as Eliot’s. She leaned back on the bar with her elbows, daring Margo to start a new argument. 

“Maybe later,” Margo said, biting down the urge to engage. Everyone seemed determined to push her buttons today—Josh, Henry, Kady, even Eliot. The gravity of her work was beyond their comprehension, or perhaps just beyond their caring. 

***

They spent the quick drive across town in uncomfortable silence. Kady didn’t want to know more about her case and Margo didn’t want to bring up their past. If there were ever a prize for stubbornness, Kady would be her fiercest competitor. They each stared idly out the window, not even a glance back to see if the other would relent. 

Finally, they came upon the offices of Harriet Schiff. A freelance reporter and survivor of two assassination attempts suspected to have been financed by Hearst himself, she was well known to be free from anyone’s puppet strings. Born without the ability to hear, she was known to joke that being deaf meant she didn’t have to listen to asshole politicians telling her to back off. Margo considered her a legend. Despite the handful of times they met, Harriet barely knew Margo from any woman off the street.

To Margo’s surprise, Kady fielded a reprimand from Harriet’s secretary upon entry for not making an appointment. She hadn’t expected anything more than reluctant interpreting out of her ex, but Kady was full of surprises. Successfully through the first hurdle, Margo pushed through the door to Harriet’s office. 

Sat behind a typewriter, ink stains on her hands, Harriet looked up only a moment after they entered. Beside Margo, Kady clenched her right hand into a fist with the thumb out on top. Held against her chest, she moved it in a clockwise circle, before opening the fist and chopping it into the space between the thumb and index finger of her other hand. Mesmerized by the actions, Margo barely heard Kady enunciate her words. 

“You’re a little rusty,” Harriet said, her voice clearer than Margo remembered. 

Margo wasn’t overly familiar with deaf education, but she did know that signing was more a point of pride for Harriet than an absolute necessity. From what she had been told by Kady, oralism was forced on hearing impaired children from a young age, and Harriet was no exception. 

“It’s been awhile,” Kady said while her hands moved to match her words. “You remember my friend, Margo Hanson?” 

“Private Detective? You used to work for Pickwick, didn’t you?”

“A long time ago,” Margo said through gritted teeth. She didn’t like to talk about where she got her start. The name of her supposed mentor had turned to dirt when it was found that he had been stealing from his clients. All connections to him were meant to be dead and buried, but then again, knowing things that no one else did was why she had come to Harriet in the first place. 

“I wrote about his trial,”

“I remember. Great coverage.”

“And your father’s too.”

Kady stopped translating and looked over to Margo. Face held with composure, Margo tried not to let the mention of her family get to her. She didn’t want or need their pity. 

“Last I heard he was rotting just a few cells down from Pickwick over at Folsom,” she said, making sure her lips were impossible to misinterpret. That part of the conversation was over. Harriet had flexed her considerable knowledge and torn her down a peg before she had even done something to deserve it. 

“Margo?” Kady said her name softly—uncharacteristic of her, but then Margo had never told her anything about her family. She never told anyone about them. Margo liked to pretend that she had just appeared one day, a fully formed adult with no attachments or baggage. 

“I’m here for some information on the author Christopher Plover. My missing person was writing a script based on his books,” Margo explained. 

“Let me stop you there,” Harriet said, while Kady struggled to keep up. 

“What?”

“Shh,” Kady waved her off while she focused on the rapid movement of Harriet’s hands. “Rumour is that he became a recluse after those two kids he wrote about sailed back to England,” Kady said slowly, not quite certain of her accuracy. “I‘m not convinced. I think he’s dead.”

“Wouldn’t someone have said something if he was? Fuck, he’s still publishing,” Margo said. Four more books had been released as sequels to the one she read. 

“Harriet says she doesn’t have proof, but she thinks it’s his sister keeping it quiet.”

“Real piece of work,” Harriet added, loud and clear. Mouth turned up, Margo could see the disdain on the reporters face. There was a story behind that look, and she wanted to get to the bottom of it. 

“Perhaps my missing person found something,” Margo said as she took a seat in front of Harriet’s desk. “Scale of one to ten, how likely is this sister to do something fucked up to keep this secret?”

“No idea,” said Harriet. 

“She says you can have everything she’s got on them and in exchange you find her the proof that Plover is dead,” Kady added, standing behind her. 

Having someone behind her made Margo feel more uncomfortable than she should have in the small office. She never did like the lack of control when she couldn’t see everything that was going on. Fighting the urge to stand up and make herself as imposing as she possibly could, Margo reclined in the chair instead and flicked one leg over the other. Without asking, she reached into her purse, pulled out a cigarette and lit up. “I can agree to that.”

Harriet let out a huff, causing Kady to laugh. Fingers brushed against Margo’s shoulder, as Kady held onto the backrest of her chair for support. 

“What about Charlie Quinn?” Margo decided to test her luck. “What can you give me on him?”

“Nope. No fucking way,” Harriet said, throwing her hands up in a display that even Margo could clearly understand. “There are some stories even I won’t cover.”

“What are you afraid of?” 

Ignoring her question, Harriet turned to her filing cabinet and began searching through her drawers. 

“I think we might be done,” Kady said softly.

“Here.” Harriet dropped a folder on the desk in front of Margo. “Everything I have.”

Kady was right. It was time to leave. Margo put the cigarette in her mouth and picked up the folder. She stood, slipped the envelope under her arm and took her cigarette back into her hand. “Thanks.”

“I hope you find him,” Harriet said. 

“You and me both.”

Back out on the street, Margo hailed a cab for Kady. She shoved a handful of notes in her ex-girlfriend’s hand and considered walking the few miles back to her office. It was after five, and she had no idea if Eliot would still be there, but she still wasn’t ready to go home. 

“You know,” Kady said from inside the cab. “You could come back to mine.”


	6. Chapter 6

Curls splayed out on the pillow, Kady looked nothing like the angry woman Margo called on for a favor that afternoon. Lips closed in a relaxed smile, Kady's chest rose gently while she slept, worn out from their attempts at reuniting. Margo wasn't entirely sure she had made the right decision coming back to the small studio in Lincoln Heights. Regardless, she'd made her choice to retread old ground, and gotten her fair share of satisfaction before they called it a night.

No way to tell what time it was, Margo fought the urge to sleep. Naked and worn out, she was careful not to wake Kady as she got up from the bed. Margo made her way over to a small table and chair in the corner of the room. The summer heat kept her from needing to cover up. Just the exertion of crossing the room was enough to have her sweating again. 

The file Harriet had given her lay unopened, it's secrets left unread while Margo was distracted. Taking a seat, Margo lit another cigarette and settled in to research. 

Harriet's shorthand was easy enough to decipher by the time she made her way through the first few pages. There was a decent amount of information on Christopher Plover, but that wasn’t surprising. Wealthy immigrants always captured the attention of locals, if only for a few moments. Plover had managed to segue his fifteen minutes into four years thanks to his stories about three young adults who ventured into a fantasy land via a grandfather clock. The kind of story her teenage self would have loved. A chance to escape the feeling of being locked away at boarding school—for her own protection. She tried to bury the thoughts of her family as quickly as they surfaced. There were so many more important things to think about.

Most of Harriet’s file felt irrelevant to her case. She didn’t need to know where he was born, or how he liked to drink his tea—Margo wasn’t Sherlock Holmes, and that kind of pretentious shit didn’t fly in Los Angeles. She searched for anything that might be pertinent, something he might have wanted to hide from the prying eyes of a dedicated fan like Quentin Coldwater. Christ, she still didn’t know enough about her missing person to fill a cocktail napkin. 

Almost ready to give up for the night, something caught her eye. Jane and Martin Chatwin—two of the three characters from the books. Their names were highlighted on a manifest belonging to a ship that left Los Angeles almost three years earlier. Digging deeper, Margo found copies of their original entry papers, where they were listed as wards of Plover and his sister, Constance. Harriet certainly was thorough. They had been in their mid-teens when they arrived, seemingly orphaned in the war. From the dates and ages of the children, Jane and Martin left their appointed guardians the moment they reached adulthood. She couldn’t blame them, she had done the exact same. 

The cigarette slipped from her finger, and Margo felt the light brush of Kady’s lips against her neck. Kady stubbed the cigarette out on an ashtray, before using her free hands to run down Margo’s naked body. Shivering with pleasure as Kady’s lithe fingers on the sensitive skin of her inner thigh, Margo felt herself ease too comfortably into the familiarity of her touch.

“Come back to bed,” she said, trailing light kisses along her collarbone. “Those words are still going to be the same in the morning.”

There was a truth in Kady’s words that Margo couldn’t fight. The urgency in the case had to be weighed with how useful she would be the next morning without a good night sleep. She hadn’t had one for at least a week. Her desk chair or the cot she had hidden away in her office was hardly a substitute for a spring mattress and the arms of a woman. Still, she had only just found some information that felt important to her, and she didn’t want to lose the momentum. 

“Not yet,” she said, fighting back the unconscious urge to add a pet name. It would be too easy to slip back into familiarity with Kady, and Margo did not need that kind of distraction. Not now. “Go on, I’ll join you soon.”

Kady huffed, but Margo was adamant that she wasn’t going to bed until she had done a little more digging. Locating her notebook and pen, she scratched down the names and dates, searching for anything that lined up. The Chatwin twins’ departure coincided with Christopher Plover’s change from ambitious author to recluse. There had to be something in that. Margo looked over the dates again. The twins left on 21st September 1945. Reading it over, she felt uneasy, but she couldn’t place it. What she needed was a good glass of whiskey and the assistant she considered more of a partner than she’d ever let him know. 

Margo quickly dressed and gathered her files. The adrenaline of a half-formed idea filled her veins, and she needed to put it all together before it slipped away. Taking a quick look at the bed, she saw that Kady had fallen back asleep. It would have been so easy to slip out the door. Exactly like she had the last time they saw each other. Margo could never tell what she hated more, sentimentality, or repetition. She decided déjà vu was the bigger crime and made her way back to the bed. With a gentle brush of her hand through Kady’s hair, Margo woke her to say goodbye, but refused an explanation—it’s wasn’t like they were getting back together. 

***

Margo’s apartment was only a short detour from where Eliot lived. It wasn’t where she wanted to go—particularly at that time of night. But she needed a clean suit, and maybe a shower. Against her better judgment, she decided to visit it first, before unloading the new evidence on Eliot. 

With her revolver in hand for safety, she twisted the doorknob. The lock was broken, just as she had left it and it was impossible to tell if that put her more on edge. She opened the door to see a faint glow from the corner of her sitting room. There was no way she had left a light on. Margo drew her revolver and used the open door as a shield while she checked for an intruder. Nothing. The only sound came from her own breathing and the traffic on the street below. For a moment, she let herself relax when the shadow cast by an armchair grew outwards. 

“Hands up where I can see them,” she said, her voice far more steady than she felt. 

“Put the gun down Bambi, it’s me.” Eliot stood up from the armchair and waved his hands in the air in a dramatic display of his innocence. “I had been hoping to show off my acting skills with a little monologue about coming home late,” he said, making his way over to her as she lowered the weapon. Taking the gun from her hands, he placed it on her sideboard and flicked the light switch, bathing the room in artificial light. Pointing towards her dining table, Eliot drew her attention to a decaying dahlia—the petals too far gone to show their original color—and a torn up notecard. “Not to sound like anyone’s father—because we know how we feel about those—but you have some explaining to do.”

Naïveté was rarely a word that could describe Margo, but at that moment it was all she felt. Somehow she had convinced herself that even after Eliot caught her sleeping in her office, she would still be able to keep it from him. Her first instinct was to brush it off, say nothing. Margo slid past Eliot and placed her bag and Harriet’s files on the table. Still silent, she took off her tie and hung it on the back of a chair. 

“You’re going to have to tell me sometime,” Eliot insisted, folding his arms across his chest. He leaned against the door, and Margo felt some of the tension in her body fall away. 

“I’m going to take a shower,” she said, “I’m sweating like a sinner on Sunday.”

“Oh, you’re going to tell me about that sin too.” He gestured his acceptance of her delaying tactics and flashed her a knowing smile. He always could tell when she got lucky. 

***

Refreshed from the shower, Margo returned to the sitting room wearing a peach satin nightgown. She finished toweling off her hair, while Eliot poured them each a cup of coffee, topped with a splash of her own brandy. 

“Not exactly what I had in mind,” she said, dropping her towel to the floor so she could take the drink in her hands. 

“I know. I would have preferred Croizet,” Eliot smiled, “but your taste in alcohol is far lower brow than your taste in lingerie.”

“I’m taking that as a compliment,” she winked before taking a sip of the coffee. It was hotter than she liked, but every delay was welcomed. Margo sat down in the armchair, her damp hair cold against her back, contrasting with the heat of the coffee and the heavy summer air. 

Following her lead, Eliot grabbed a chair from the dining table and spun it around to sit on it backward. 

“What, is this an interrogation?” Her tone was only slightly more aggressive than she wanted it to be. This was all a distraction from the case, and she didn’t need to be bringing her personal life into it. 

“Just tell me what’s going on with you,” Eliot said, downing his coffee in one huge gulp. “We don’t need this hanging over your head when we have a case to solve.” 

Biting back the snark that always found its way into her throat when confronted, Margo grimaced at him. Eliot was using those tactics that worked so well with their clients; she couldn’t be mad at him. He was right after all. The looming threat left by the break-in of her apartment wasn’t going to help her focus on the case. 

“I don’t know who it is,” she said, finally giving in to his questions. She drew her legs up, pressing the cup between her knees and her chest. “The notes started a few weeks ago, slipped under the door.”

“Jesus, Margo.”

“They broke in last Saturday—while we were out watching that film,” she added, “that’s when I started sleeping at the office.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Really?” Margo questioned him back. Weakness and vulnerability weren’t her style and even he wasn’t supposed to be privy to that side of her. 

“Fine. How do we fix it?”

“ _We_ don’t,” Margo said between gulps of coffee. “ _We_ solve this case, and then _I_ deal with it.”

“Margo…”

“I went and saw Harriet Schiff,” Margo ignored his plea and moved right onto the case. 

“So that was Kady that I smelled on you earlier.” True to form, Eliot took the bait and allowed himself to be distracted from his concerns. 

“What can I say, it’s hard to get over me,” she forced a smile. Her own words brought her thoughts back to the threats. There was a good chance it was an even less forgiving ex-lover behind the break-in. Margo quickly squashed the thoughts. There was a theory to work on and from the color of the sky outside it was almost dawn. Julia was set to be at the office that morning—she had to have something concrete to give her. 

The only way to get back on track was to lay everything she had out for Eliot to give her a second opinion. Slipping out of the chair, Margo stretched out her legs. She was determined to feel herself again after the unwelcome reminder. File under her arm, she grabbed a small end table and dragged it between them. Opening the file to the information on the twins, she handed Eliot her own notes and sat back down, awaiting his response. 

Eliot’s blank stare as he read the notes left her heart thumping in her chest. She needed validation for the theory growing in her mind. 

“It could just be a coincidence,” he said slowly, “thousands of crimes are committed every day.” His hesitation was the opposite of what she craved. “I’m not saying you’re wrong, but we still don’t have a solid connection between this author of yours and the Quinns.”

“We have Quentin Coldwater,” she said. Margo crossed her legs on the armchair and settled her elbows on her thighs. “We might not know much, but he was looking into both, and he’s now been missing for—.”

“And we know even less about Charlie Quinn,” Eliot interrupted. “That Fall was...eventful—to say the least.”

“Then we ask someone who knows more about him than anyone else.”

“Alice Quinn is crazy.”

Dropping her hands to her knees, Margo considered pushing herself up to pace the room. Her own preconceived notions about Alice Quinn were one thing, but to hear Eliot sprout the same line the police had used for ignoring the grieving girl's pleas almost pushed her over the edge. 

“All women who don’t agree with the bullshit we’re supposed to go along with are ‘crazy’,” 

“Margo…”

“You think I haven’t been called crazy or difficult or any other variation of ‘bitch’?” Eliot held fast while she stared him down. Her gaze bored into him, daring him to continue. Luckily for Eliot, he had been around her long enough to know that not every situation called for his need to break the tension with sarcasm. “You should know better than to regurgitate the trash that comes from the mouths of cops.”

Mouth opened as if he wanted to say something, Margo shot Eliot a final look that left him nodding instead. Standing, he collected the coffee cups and papers, leaving them on the table to be dealt with later. “I need sleep,” he said, testing her mood. 

She had intended to just shower and go straight to Eliot’s, but now it was too late to make a move. The sun would be up in less than an hour, and in only a few more they were due at the office. Margo wasn’t sure that she felt comfortable enough in her apartment after the break-in to get any real sleep, but with Eliot by her side, she might get some light rest. Anything was better than nothing. Picking herself up from the armchair, she walked towards the bedroom and waved for Eliot to follow.


	7. Chapter 7

Half past ten, with sleep still in her eyes, they reached the office. Yet again, Todd was at the front desk, he had a warm smile, but his eyes were wide, and his pupils dilated. In front of him sat two coffee cups, both empty. They were probably for her and Eliot, and in their absence, the poor kid had drunk them himself. She wanted to have a word with the super of the building, convince him to give Todd a break from his shifts; the hours were clearly breaking him. 

“Ms. Hanson.” Her protective thoughts over Todd were interrupted by a low, sultry voice. Margo turned to see a woman leaning against the opposite wall of the lobby. Her pristine white skirt and matching suit jacket contrasted with her olive skin and the dirty beige wall behind her. Long dark finger waves cascaded down her shoulders to a length that rivaled her own.

“Ms. Wicker?” Margo responded. Having never seen nor spoken with Julia Wicker before, the attitude of the woman seemed to match the telegram, but she never could be certain. The woman brought a cigarette to her lips, held in a thin silver holder. If she was Julia Wicker, she was even better at keeping in her emotions than Margo was. 

“You’re late,” she said, admission enough that she was who Margo suspected. 

“Not as late as you,” Eliot quipped, earning him an elbow in the stomach.

“I’m assuming you haven’t found Quentin,” Julia said between drags on the cigarette; likely using the smoke to cover any waver in her voice. “So what have you found?”

“We’re working on a few theories. A few people that may have some information,” Margo said before Eliot could mention that they were following the tenuous connection to the Quinn case. It had been national news, there was no need to worry their client until they were sure, one way or another. 

“Worked on this one?” Julia reached into her handbag and produced a locked diary. She threw it across the room for Eliot to catch. “I went by his boarding house this morning and found it under the bed.” Peeking out from the top of the cover, was a photo, which Margo snatched while Eliot inspected the lock. 

“This him?” She asked Julia. The photo showed an image of a young man with hair almost long enough to graze his chin. His eyes seemed to lookevery direction other than the camera as if he was afraid to show himself. 

Beside her, Eliot made a noise that she hadn’t heard before. When she looked up at him, his face was stoic, and his attention returned to the lock. “I have a screwdriver upstairs,” he said, voice purposefully low. Without another word, he left the women downstairs to try and open the diary, leaving Margo with a new set of questions they didn’t have time to answer. 

Julia cocked her head towards Margo in mild confusion. She raised her arms in a display of resigned inconvenience; it was probably nothing, Eliot was always dramatic. 

Taking the time to put on a show of her impatience, Julia tapped her foot and took a long drag of the cigarette, before she finally spoke again. “I’m paying you good money for results.” She was so direct, and to the point, it should have put Margo offside, but in comparison to her usual clients, the lack of small talk was more than welcomed. 

“Does this mean anything to you?” Margo pulled out her notebook to show Julia her sketch of the badge from the blazer she found the day before. It was even less to go off than the Chatwin children leaving LA and Charlie Quinn going missing within a week, but it was better than showing Julia nothing. 

“I—Where did you see this?” Julia asked the strength in her low voice fell away momentarily. “That’s from Yale—but it’s not Quentin’s—he never rode crew.”

The revelation of Quentin’s lack of sporting prowess didn’t surprise her after seeing the picture, but she was surprised by how Julia reacted. 

The telephone rang out from the front desk, and Margo turned to watch as Todd answered. 

“Good morning, Whitespire Offices, this is Todd speaking.” His voice was upbeat and welcoming—if she ever hired a secretary it would be him. Nodding a few times, he wrote down a quick note and hung up the phone. “Ms. Hanson?” Todd called out to her. 

Eyebrow raised, Margo made her way over to him and leaned over the desk. “Yes, Todd?”

“A ‘Hoberman’ called to say he has a present for you at Brakebills,” he said slowly, uncertain if Hoberman was a name or a profession. “He said to bring the Beanpole for muscle.”

Before Margo could react, Julia was beside her. The cigarette snuffed out on the ashtray Todd set on his desk for visitors, her hands pressed into the counter with a force that almost turned her lightly tanned knuckles white. “Is it Quentin?” 

“I’m sorry ma’am, I’m not sure,” Todd said, his head dropped low to the desk as he doodled on the page of notes. Margo checked his handwriting, there was nothing there that he hadn’t said. “Ms. Hanson will find him though, she’s the best,” he looked up, his warm smile radiated towards her and filled her with a confidence she hadn’t realized had waned. 

“I will,” she said, raising a hand up to stop Todd from racing upstairs. “Call us a cab. I’ll get Eliot.”

***

To Margo’s dismay, Julia had insisted she accompany them to Brakebills. The thought of someone looking over her shoulder brought back memories of her investigative apprenticeship. But Julia flashed around her checkbook, and even she couldn’t deny the usefulness of such deep pockets. 

The smell of marijuana greeted them before they saw Josh. Legs spread, he sat in the doorway leading from the alley into the kitchen. The grin on his face was so broad that he looked like the Joker from those comic books Todd was always reading. “You guys are going to love me,” he greeted them. Standing quickly, he handed his joint to Eliot who shrugged his shoulders and took a puff.

“Seriously?” Margo said, inching her head forward to indicate their client. 

“It’s medicinal,” he smiled and tapped his left leg before handing it back to Josh. 

The cook snuffed it out and gestured for all three to follow him inside. “You didn’t tell me you were working with two women,” he said, patting Eliot on the back. 

“That would be our client.”

“Nice.” Josh turned and threw out his hand for Julia, leaving Margo blocked outside the doorway. “Josh Hoberman, it is a pleasure to meet you.” 

Stamping her foot, Margo made sure Josh knew he was wearing her patience thin. To her irritation, Julia humored him in a way so practiced it almost had her in awe. 

“Julia Wicker,” she said, allowing him to shake her hand. “I understand you have something to help us find Quentin.”

“Of course,” he twirled his arms, only to be held back by Eliot. 

“No theatrics this time Hoberman,” he said quietly. “As much as I do appreciate them.” Eliot turned to Margo, and she flashed him a grateful smile. 

“Your loss.”

Screams called out from the cold room, and the door shook on its hinges. Every step they took closer provoked whoever it was that Josh had locked inside. 

“You kidnapped someone?” Julia asked, looking between Eliot and Margo with concern. 

“Kidnapping is a strong word Ms. Wicker—I like to consider this an ‘involuntary cool down’,” he said, tapping Eliot on the side of the arm to get his attention. “It is scorching outside, I’m really doing him a favor—you might want to get your gun out Waugh—my guest is a little tetchy.”

Following Josh’s lead, Eliot drew his weapon and trained it on the door. Josh flicked open the handle, and the force of the banging from inside made it fly open. A man almost as tall, dressed in a smart black suit came running out, cursing at Josh and threatening legal action. Cocking back the hammer, Eliot stepped forward to exert his authority over the raging man. 

“James?” Julia exhaled, stopping Josh’s captive in his tracks. 

“Jules.”

“A reunion?” Josh gasped, and Margo couldn’t tell if it was genuine or not. “How beautiful.”

“Shut up Hoberman,” Margo snapped at him. 

Julia and the man she called James stared at each other. A few feet apart, neither moved, as if to come any closer would cause them physical pain. “I could watch this show for days,” Eliot whispered in her ear. 

“Alright. Anyone want to tell me what is going on?” Margo walked between them, determined to break the awkward tension. “Julia, Josh...James?”

“So many J’s,” Josh butted in, waving his joint around as if it were the funniest joke of the season. 

“Shut up Hoberman.” This time everyone else joined Margo. 

“Fine, don’t appreciate me,” Josh pouted, he turned around and grabbed something from a shelf. “It’s not like I’m the one that found this.” He dangled a houndstooth sports coat in front of them.

A soft cry came from Julia. “That’s Quentin’s,” she said before she stole it from his hands.

“What is going on? Why are you here? Why did this asshole lock me inside there?” The shock worn off from seeing Julia, he spat out his questions in rapid but firm succession. 

The situation out of control, Margo cursed Josh for refusing to warn them. “You, quiet,” she pointed at him and Eliot who seemed more amused than anything at the chaos. Having disciplined Josh, she turned to the others. “You two, explain.”

“I am an Assistant District Attorney, I’m asking the questions right now.”

“No,” Margo waved him off. “Right now, you’re some guy walking around with a jacket belonging to my missing person, and my client,” she indicated Julia, “Is paying me to ask the questions.”

“Quentin is missing?” James’ voice broke. “I told him to stop—“

“What was he doing?” Julia grabbed him by the arm. “James?” 

“You know what he’s like with puzzles,” James said, quickly taking command the room. Back straight, he stood tall with enviable posture. “We catch up every Monday, but last time he wouldn’t stop talking about Charlie Quinn. He had it in his head that he knew what really happened—he demanded I sneak him into my offices to see what my boss had.”

“He never mentioned that he saw you,” Julia said, her voice barely above a whisper. 

Margo didn’t have time for Julia to get wistful. “You were the last person to see him?” She asked while a picture formed in her mind of Quentin Coldwater’s last known movements. 

“Not me.” His attention was spread between her questions and whatever history he had with Julia. “I left when the Quinn girl came to our table. That’s how I picked up the wrong coat—I figured I’d swap it later, but then he wasn’t at the boarding house yesterday. He comes here for lunch sometimes—I should have stayed.”

Alice Quinn’s name was coming up too often for it to be any kind of coincidence. They needed to find her.

“He was supposed to call me that night, he always called,” Julia said. It was new information that she hadn’t given to Margo. “The next day, I called and called, but he didn’t answer—why would you leave him?”

It was all a little too emotional for Margo’s liking and no longer helpful. She took the coat from Julia’s grasp and inspected it. Embroidered into the lining of the abandoned sports coat was the name Quentin Coldwater. She searched the pockets for any clues. Most were empty, but inside the breast pocket, Margo found another matchbook. Deep aubergine in color, it was imprinted with words, The Bacchus Club. 

“The Bacchus Club?” She asked, vaguely aware of the name. She had heard of the place before, and not just in relation to her boarding school Latin. 

“You’ve been,” Eliot said, his face lit up at the mention of the name. He took the matchbook from her and lit himself a cigarette. “A couple of blocks south of Sunset, but you won’t find it on any tourist map-“

“Where you flirted with Spencer Tracy, and I kissed Katharine Hepburn,” she said, slowly remembering a dark, smoke-filled bar with velvet lounges and gravel-voiced jazz singers. Eliot’s excitement made far more sense. He nodded and leaned back into the kitchen bench with his eyes closed, reminiscing over the fateful night he almost went home with a marquee-level star. “Those bodyguards were so unprofessional,” she commented, thinking of the way the two of them were manhandled by Hollywood enforcers desperate to protect their employers' investments. 

“Exactly,” he said casually. “It hasn’t been called that for a few months though,” he added, waving his hand around while the smoke drifted off the cigarette between his fingers. His face flushed with enthusiasm, and he flicked the matchbook back to Margo. Taking a leisurely drag, Eliot indicated that she open it up and look inside the cover.

“Bring the girl,” she read aloud. The words were interesting but essentially meaningless without an idea of who wrote them, though she was confident ‘the girl’ was Alice Quinn.

“Creepy,” Josh commented, leaning over her shoulder. His breath was hot and sticky against her ear. She elbowed him in the rib cage, allowing an indiscrete laugh to escape her lips as he winced in mock pain. 

“Well, we are definitely investigating that place tonight,” Eliot said with more enthusiasm than was necessary. 

“I’m really sorry about this, but I have to get back to the office,” James broke in. He reached out towards Julia, only to stop short. “Will you have din—“ he started, but his voice faltered. “I’ll keep my eyes and ears open for any news.”

Dinner with the handsome lawyer was exactly what Julia needed to do. Get her mind off the case and off Margo’s back while she chased down the strongest leads yet. “She’ll have dinner with you tonight,” she said, steeling herself for the inevitable blowback from an angry client. 

To her surprise, Julia nodded; a slow resigned lowering of her head before raising it to agree with a resounding yes. Margo couldn’t quite read her yet, but she had a feeling Julia was astute enough to see the value in gathering more information from James. If she weren’t, Margo would fill her in the moment he left. 

The smile on James’ face was unmistakable as he walked out through the back of the club. Not big enough to give off the impression he was happy Quentin Coldwater was missing—his earlier concern was genuine as far as Margo could tell. It was just enough to give her even more of a reason to question Julia about how the three of them fit together. There was apparently a lot of history, and at least some of it had to be relevant. 

“Oh, shit!” She called out. Margo thrust the coat into Julia’s hands and raced to the door, catching James just before he was out of earshot. Taking a moment to catch her breath she took him by the elbow. “Seeing as you’re a DA, you can get me Alice Quinn’s last known address.”

“I’m not supposed to give out information like that.”

“James, please,” Julia pleaded. “It’s Quentin.”

Julia’s hold over him was palpable. All it took was the sound of her voice, and he was doing whatever she asked. 

“All right, got a pen?” He said, patting down his own pockets. 

Everyone but Josh searched their belongings for something for him to write on. Notebook located first, Margo found that her pencil was blunt and her fountain pen dry. Behind her, Eliot sighed dramatically, producing his coveted Reynolds Rocket for James to use. 

“Be careful with that,” he warned.

“It’s mostly ornamental,” Margo snarked back. She remembered how he got it. A gift from a former client who weaseled her way out of paying her expenses but saw fit to give the pen to Eliot ‘for all his hard work’. Margo was the one that got the photos of the woman’s cheating husband that lead to her pocketing hundreds of thousands of dollars in the divorce. Eliot merely offered her a drink. “Probably doesn’t even work.”

“She’s been into the DA’s offices so many times, I know the address by heart,” James said reluctantly as he wrote down her details. “Here—but don’t go in unless she lets you,” he advised. “If you break and enter and it gets back to me I could lose my job.”

“Scouts honor,” Eliot joked.

“We’re professionals,” Margo added, taking the notebook back from him. She met his gaze and stared into his eyes with defiance.

“I’m staying at the Biltmore, you can meet me at eight,” Julia thankfully put an end to their reassurances. 

When he finally left, Julia made it clear that she intended to find out everything James knew but hadn’t said. There was no doubt in Margo’s mind that she was more than up for the task.


	8. Chapter 8

“It was always the three of us—Quentin, James and I,” Julia started to explain. “We’ve known each other since grade school, ‘the best and the brightest’”, Julia added, though the words sounded tired and rehearsed as if she had spent her life repeating that same sentence. ‘The best and the brightest’, a little box to place children in to sort them apart from one another. It reminded her of her own childhood epithet; ‘spoiled brat’.

After sending Eliot back to the office to finish his work with Quentin’s diary, Margo and Julia made their way to the address James had given them for Alice Quinn. It was only a few blocks from Brakebills, so they had agreed to walk, giving Margo a chance to grill her client about her relationship with the missing man. 

“They were the best of friends, but then we had to go and ruin it by getting engaged…”

“You and—“

“James,” she answered quickly. “I never felt ‘that way’ about Quentin—as much as I wish I had,” Julia added, hastening her pace. “But then the war happened, Quentin got picked out of Yale to break codes for the Navy, and James was doing his clerkship—“

“And you felt left behind because there is no reason that you shouldn’t be doing something just as important.”

“You know, I was told that hiring you was a mistake,” Julia said, changing the subject about what she had done during the war. “That it was a waste of money to hire a woman to do a man’s job.”

“I started doing this job before the last war, and I can guarantee you I’ll still be doing it when the next one comes along,” Margo bristled, Julia seemed like she was coming to a point, but it wasn’t clear what that was. 

“That’s why I hired you,” Julia countered. “That, and I figured you wouldn’t push me to the side or try to sleep with me like all the detectives do in the movies.”

Biting her tongue, Margo successfully avoided admitting they were both things she had considered. Though that really was one of the significant differences between her and Philip Marlowe types Julia was no doubt referencing. She knew how to keep it to herself—when required. 

Julia moved to speak again when Margo heard the sound of heavy feet behind them. She placed a hand up to Julia’s lips. “There is someone following us,” Margo mouthed, edging her head towards the noise. 

No one there, Margo suspected the person trailing them had taken refuge behind a corner. She pulled her gun out of her bag and indicated to Julia that they keep walking. Distracting her client with stilted small talk, Margo pushed them forward in an attempt to lull their pursuer into thinking they hadn’t been noticed. Had she been alone, Margo might have confronted the stalker; cornered them in the alley with her gun drawn and demanded an explanation. With Julia by her side, that wasn’t an option. Even the smallest risk to her safety was too much. 

Up ahead, Margo saw a newspaper stand. Early afternoon, the morning papers were mostly sold out and the afternoon edition had yet to arrive, leaving it bare. Thankfully the newsagent was still there. Taking Julia by the hand, Margo led them to the stand and made a show of purchasing a pack of chewing gum. She twisted at the very last moment to catch a view of a uniformed police officer, head ducked away from them. Hand on his hat, Margo recognized the tattoos from the man trying to enter Brakebills the day before. 

Gum left on the counter, Margo flicked back the hammer of her revolver, ready to chase him down, but it was too late—he knew he’d been made. Beside her Julia spoke, though her words fell on deaf ears; Margo was focused on watching the officer as he disappeared behind the corner, taking in all the details she could. Tallish, with a lazy gait barely concealed by his speed, she couldn’t help but notice he had a great ass. Not enough to go on, but his uniform was legitimate from what she could tell. 

“What was that?” Julia asked, snapping Margo from her thoughts. 

“That is a fucking conspiracy, I’ll tell you that much,” Margo said, working out whether to mention that it wasn’t the first time she had seen him. 

“I’m worried about Quentin.”

“I’ll find him,” Margo said quickly. “I promise.” She wasn’t supposed to say things like that. There were no guarantees, just that she would do everything that she could. 

They waited a few moments, eyes on the corner to make sure the coast was clear before they resumed their walk to Alice Quinn’s apartment. The mood was even lower than it had been before and Margo hated that she had to keep with the questions. She’d rather they stopped for a drink, so she could have time to work out why someone from the LAPD was following her. Or was it Julia they were following?

They didn’t have time. Quentin had been missing for days now, and she had been on the case for almost as long. “Why were you so certain Quentin went missing?” Margo asked as they walked slower than she would have liked. It wasn’t unusual to be engaged on a case so quickly, but that was usually because a husband or child didn’t come home. From what she’d been able to gather, Julia hadn’t seen Quentin in months. 

“The last time we spoke, something was off,” Julia said, picking up the pace. “What he was saying was normal, but I just knew there was something wrong. When he didn’t pick up all day Tuesday, I just knew.” Julia kept her eyes forward, hardly breaking her stride. 

***

Boarded up windows were the first thing Margo noticed. The building was run down; almost a squat. A far cry from whatever stately home that Alice Quinn had no doubt grown up in. She wondered if this was a deliberate choice from the girl to cut herself off from her family or if the search for her brother had indeed bankrupted them. Possibly both. 

Getting in the building was simple. No lock on the front door and no one in sight, Margo and Julia walked right in. It was clear which apartment belonged to Alice. More deadbolts than even Margo could conceive of, there was no way she could break that door down if there were no one home. 

Julia banged her fist against the door before Margo could work out a plan of action. Any chance of subtlety thrown out the window, they listened for any sound from inside to indicate if someone was home. Minutes passed without a stir before Margo took her turn at knocking; a heavy rap but far less aggressive than Julia’s attempt. Margo thought she heard a faint stirring behind the door. She looked to her client; Julia’s wide eyes confirmed her suspicions. 

“Alice?” Margo called out, certain that she heard a reaction. “Alice Quinn?” She repeated, lightly tapping on the door. “My name is Margo Hanson. I’m a Private Investigator looking for Quentin Coldwater; I just want to talk.”

A soft whimper came from behind the door. There was no mistaking it, Alice was home. 

“Alice, please,” Julia started. Moving to stop her, Margo thought the better of it, her client had already proven to be valuable on the case. “We just want to find Quentin, I’m so worried about him, he’s my best friend.”

“What is your name?” A quiet voice ventured from the other side of the door.

“Julia...Julia Wicker.”

The sound of metal sliding against metal and a handful of deadbolts clicking open revealed a young girl in her late teens with a gaunt face and unkempt hair. While Margo sized her up, Julia wrapped her in a gentle hug. Red rings lined her eyes, her upper lip glistened with almost dried snot and tears. Her too-short pinafore dress was torn at the front pocket, and her shirt sleeves were covered in dirt. 

“What happened Alice?” Julia asked, “when did this happen to you?”

The questions were too direct, but it allowed Margo to watch as the young girl pulled at her sleeves, barely acknowledging Julia’s touch. Around her wrists were purple bruises—not fresh, but not very old either. It didn’t take her considerable detective skills to recognize that at some point in the last day or so Alice had been bound, but she noticed that there were no scratches on her hands. 

Alice still hadn’t spoken. Her lips trembled, but no words came out. Brushing Julia aside, Margo took Alice by the hand and lead her to an unmade bed in the corner of the room. 

“You’ve been through a lot, haven’t you?” Margo said as she sat her down. 

Nodding meekly, Alice made a noise that Margo took as an agreement. Comforting people was not exactly her forte, but it was hard not to feel genuine concern. 

“Julia, can you get a glass of water?” Margo asked, trying to make it less intimidating for Alice. Seeing her as a shivering girl, barely more than a child, she was nothing like the newspapers described; a lamb hiding under a wolfskin coat. Not exactly surprising, but whatever had led her to the state that she was in certainly didn’t help. 

“We’re going to get you cleaned up,” Margo said, brushing Alice’s hair from her eyes. She stiffened under the touch.

“No!” Alice cried, pushing Margo aside. She stood up and ran over to where Julia had opened a cupboard looking for a glass. “You can’t look in there!” 

Trying to calm Alice down, Margo told Julia to close the cupboard, but it was no use. Alice wailed, begging for the door to be closed, fighting against Margo’s arms. 

“Julia?”

Knuckles white, wrapped around the flimsy wood, Julia stood fixed in her position. “You have to see this,” she said finally, her voice flat, bereft of any emotion. She flung the rest of the cupboard doors open to reveal an elaborate set up of maps, images, and articles. 

“What the fuck?” Margo said slowly, releasing Alice from her grasp to join Julia. It was an investigation board on par with a professional. Every pinpoint on a large map of LA had a date and time affixed to it. Portraits and mug shots of more than a dozen suspects were tacked on anywhere there was space. Politicians, police officers and lawyers involved in the case all had their place. There were faces of mobsters that Margo had only heard of, their ability to remain anonymous famed throughout the city and yet Alice had photos. “Where did you get all this?” 

“Where is Quentin?!” Julia said suddenly, shaking Alice by the shoulders. “What happened to him?”

Margo pushed her way between them, breaking Julia’s hold. “That is not going to help!” 

“I’m sorry,” Alice muttered, her head bowed low to the ground. “I’m so sorry.”

“What did you do?” 

“Alice, you need to tell us everything,” Margo added while Julia paced the room in evident frustration. 

“He tried to help.” Alice’s voice shook with every word. “He...he helped me escape…”

“From where?” 

“I...I don’t know,” she admitted. “It was dark...and...they drugged us—somewhere near the Hills.”

“Is Quentin still alive?” Julia demanded.

“Alice, honey.” Margo petted her hair once again, feeling the girl relax reluctantly under her touch. “You can tell us.”

“I don’t know.” She burst into tears. “It’s all my fault. I pushed him into helping me and now…” Alice’s words faded into silence while she sobbed.

Beside Margo, Julia fumed. Perhaps it hadn’t been the best idea to bring her along. The success of her emotional appeals had been canceled out by her lack of control. It was something Margo was acutely familiar with, but it had no place in the questioning of someone so vulnerable. 

“Come on, let’s get you cleaned up, then we can go back to my office. You’ll be more comfortable there,” Margo insisted, directing her last sentence at them both. 

Making no effort to hide her irritation at the delay in gathering information, Julia collected all of Alice’s evidence. Margo washed the dirt from Alice’s skin helped her change into a clean dress so they could leave. 

***

Back at the office, Alice remained tight-lipped about what had happened to her and Quentin. After hours of questioning, and multiple trips to the local candy store, Margo had managed to glean that the two were snatched sometime in the early hours of Tuesday morning. 

Quentin had been walking her home from a club where they had spent the evening trying to get information. Alice insisted they were promised proof that Charlie had done some gardening for the Plover family around the time he went missing. She had hoped it would be enough to convince the police to reopen the case. 

Eventually, Margo was able to convince Julia to leave so that she could meet James in time for their dinner. They needed his knowledge as much as they needed Alice. 

“Wait,” Eliot said, once he and Margo were alone with Alice. “What Club was this again?” 

“Safe,” she replied, sucking on a gumdrop. “It’s…”

“Oh, I know where that is.”

“Eliot?” Margo questioned. 

He threw her a matchbook. The one they had found in Quentin’s sports coat earlier that day. Thumbing over the gold print, she caught on quickly. ‘Safe’ was the name of the venue that had replaced ‘The Bacchus Club’. 

“I told you we would be going,” he smiled. 

Margo knew she probably should have stayed with Alice to coax more information out of her, but there was too much to learn from the club. They left her with Todd and the promise that he would stay with her, locked behind the office doors until they returned.


	9. Chapter 9

[](https://ibb.co/qyWDVyW)

“Since when did they start charging for entry,” Margo said, reluctantly handing over a few more notes to the coat check clerk. 

“Since the owner realized they could?” Eliot stated the obvious. They passed their jackets and hats over before making their way into the nightclub. 

Ignoring his remark, Margo moved onto business. “You have the photo?” Continuing before he had a chance to nod, she instructed him to make his way around the club, asking if anyone had seen Quentin Coldwater. Eliot seemed more than happy that the investigation led them to a locale he’d been known to frequent, but her mind was back on Alice. Margo had never been kidnapped or detained, but she was familiar with its toll on victims.

“You’re a hard woman to find.” 

A pale hand snaked its way around Margo’s waist, distracting her from her thoughts. The voice was disarmingly familiar, and she felt a shiver run up her spine. 

“That’s the whole point, Marina,” Margo said as she turned to face a woman she hadn’t seen in almost a decade. Despite how long it had been, Margo could place that honey dripped snark anywhere. They had been inseparable at boarding school; two angry girls with parental issues and axes to grind. “When did you get back to Los Angeles?” 

“New York was such a drag,” Marina waved her hand and led Margo to a private booth. Just a few moments into their unexpected reunion and Marina had already taken charge. “I’m loving this new look of yours, very ‘Sylvia Scarlett’.”

In the years since they had lived together as two furious girls determined to be treated as women, Margo was sure she had matured. While she had grown into her own, harnessing her need for authority into her investigative work; Marina Andrieski appeared to be exactly the same. Tall, slim and filled with a barely hidden seething malevolence. Margo wanted to fight against Marina’s easy display of dominance, and yet, just seeing her had Margo back to the girl she was in high school—independent and bold, with everyone except Marina. 

“So, what do you think of my club?” Marina asked, and if Margo didn’t know her better, she might have thought it was an earnest question.

“I thought he owned this place?” Margo asked, indicating a sandy-haired man in a sharp suit making small talk near the front. Along with Eliot, she had been to the club on more than one occasion, even if she was less familiar than her assistant. Marina had never been there before, but the man had. He was always there, welcoming enough, though it clearly didn’t come naturally to him.

“Pete?” Marina laughed, “that fucking idiot is just a dick with a signature.” 

Still the same as ever, Margo thought to herself. Marina never had held any respect for the opposite sex. “So you’re the boss?” 

“Didn’t we promise each other that’s how it would be?”

Margo couldn’t help but nod. For so long it had been them against the world. Two teenage girls with more money than they knew what to do with and no one else in their lives that bothered to pay any attention to them. Remembering just how much Marina knew about her had Margo on edge; she had left her old life behind the day she walked out of her parents home with nothing but the clothes on her back—and the few expensive homewares she’d stolen from them. 

“You never answered my question about coming back here,” Margo said, determined to alter the direction of their conversation. 

“I thought you would have worked it out by now,” Marina said barely noticing the effect she had. With a gentle flick of her wrist, she waved to a nearby waitress. “Two glasses of champagne, I’m celebrating,” she ordered while Margo looked on with suspicious curiosity. Every word that Marina directed at her added to her unease.

“What are you celebrating?”

“That you got my notes,” she answered, leaning back into the velvet cushions of their booth. “And those beautiful flowers. You always loved black dahlias.”

“What the fuck?” Margo jumped out of her chair. The thought of Marina being responsible for the break-in at her home and the notes that had preceded it made her skin crawl. With her past, there were worse options for who it could have been, but no one had the right to invade her space like that. 

Halfway out of her seat, she tried to leave. A large, menacing man stood at the end of the booth, preventing her escape. Looking around, she tried to place Eliot, but he was nowhere to be seen. Her hand fumbled for her purse, the safety that her gun could provide. 

“Looking for this?” Marina waved the revolver with glee. “No need to worry, I’m not going to hurt you, Margo,” she added with wicked sincerity. “I have a proposal for you.”

Unable to put up a fight, Margo had no choice but to hear her out. Her body was tense with apprehension. The hairs on her arms stood tall. Teeth clenched, she stared down her captor, refusing to show her alarm. 

“Come work for me,” Marina spoke plainly as if her proposal was the most natural thing in the world. 

“No.”

“Turning me down that quickly? Careful Margo, you might hurt my feelings.”

“I take clients, not managers,” Margo said digging her nails into the leather of the booth. She was certain her tone was final, but Marina seemed intent on ignoring anything that didn’t fit directly with her desires. 

“Every bit like your daddy,” Marina taunted, causing Margo’s blood to turn cold. She was one of the few people who knew anything about Margo’s family. “He left quite the vacuum when he went to prison.”

“Let. Me. Go.” There was nothing more she wanted to have to do with her old friend. If they could ever have been called that. The way she so callously brought up Margo’s family was a step too far. Even though it had been years, if Marina had wanted them to be friends, she knew better than to mention Margo’s father.

“No, I don’t think so,” Marina shrugged, proving that she never meant to play nice. “Though it’s not like I can't find you again. I do know where you live, and where you work...and where your ‘client’ is staying.”

“What did you do? Have me followed?” Margo’s blood ran cold. She should have paid more attention to the unease she had been feeling over the previous weeks. She should have been more proactive in hunting down the person who made her feel unsafe in her own home. Pride was an awful thing when it made her stupid. 

“It pays to have friends,” 

“You don’t have friends.”

“True,” Marina said, barely hiding a pleased grin. “It’s probably better to call them associates.” She nodded towards a tall man taking cash from a guy in a booth with some kind of small animal at his side while a woman in barely enough clothing rested her head on the table. 

Since ownership of the club changed hands, it had turned from the favorite haunt of closeted Hollywood into a den of criminal behavior and wanton debauchery. And while much of the clientele remained the same, it had picked up more than a few less than desirable characters. Still trying to work out what kind of sizeable rodent-like creature had been allowed entry, Margo almost missed the face of the man collecting the cash. Handsome, just shy of clean-shaven and with a look on his face that showed he would rather be anywhere than where he was. Despite the loose flowing plain clothes he now wore, she knew exactly who he was. The police officer who tried to get into Brakebills that first time she was there—the same one that was trailing her and Julia on their way to Alice Quinn’s apartment. 

“So you’ve seen him?” Marina said, tapping the revolver on the table. “Stands out a little too much for my liking, but then he’s generally very good at getting in and out of places like—” She snapped her fingers to punctuate the point. 

Still blocked in, Margo checked for any means of escape. For a moment, even crawling under the table felt like a valid option, but her pride was too strong to let Marina see how uncomfortable she was. Taking a deep breath, she composed her face. “I will never work for you,” she said, making sure to enunciate every word. “Now let me the fuck out of here, I have a case to solve.”

“Oh come on, let’s have a little fun, like the old days,” Marina left the gun on the table and waved at her security guard for attention. “Go tell them to hurry up and start the show,” she told them, before turning to face Margo. Her smiled beamed with a dubious glee. “I’m so glad you came by tonight of all nights.”

It had been a long time since Margo had been subject to Marina’s little games. Now in their late twenties, Margo had no patience for Marina’s childish need for attention, nor her sinister need for control. With the guard gone, she saw her chance at escape. 

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Marina said casually, tapping the gun once again on the table to get her attention. Turning back, Margo noticed that she was pointing in the direction of the bar, where Eliot stood with a sorry look on his face. Her heart dropped, they were both made. Both held captive. Behind him, another one of Marina’s thugs had a pistol pressed into his back. “I don’t really care if I have to hurt your little boy toy.”

Fear and anger combined within Margo. She gripped her hands under the edge of the table. The marble top refused to budge. Coming to the club was the worst decision she had made since taking the case, and she hadn’t even found any clues about who might have taken Quentin and Alice. Filled with fury, Margo wanted to scream. She wanted to curse out Marina and her teenage self for being naive enough to share personal information. Looking between Marina’s smile and Eliot’s apologetic frown, Margo tried to work out her next move. Given the right distraction, Eliot was capable of getting out of his predicament, but with Marina holding her gun, she lacked the required tools. 

As she considered external options, the lighting in the club dimmed, and the opening notes of a love song began to play from a barely visible piano. The arrangement differed from the way it played via record but was somehow intimately familiar. Delicate and played in a higher key at a lower speed, it wasn’t until the first words were sung out that Margo worked out how she knew it so well. 

_How soon will I be seeing you?_  
_How soon?_  
_I wish I really knew_  
_And when will you be saying_  
_Words I want to hear_  
_Tender, little love words_  
_Story old, meaning clear_

Snapping her head towards the stage, she watched as the curtains were brought back to reveal a lone figure, standing behind the microphone. Her long dark curls shone under the lights, slick with hair product that almost made her unrecognizable from the woman that Margo had gone home with the night before. There was no mistaking that voice. 

“Kady.” Margo’s voice was hardly more than a whisper. Legs weak at the sight of her not quite so ex-girlfriend in a floor-length peridot gown, serenading the crowd with a song once sung in the privacy of her bedroom, Margo dropped back down into the booth. 

“That was not the reaction I was expecting,” Marina said, interrupting the spell that Kady’s voice had put her under. It was enough to remind Margo of where she was, of the people that Kady was working for—the same kind of people that they had worked so hard to get her away from, back when they were an item. 

Torn between her desire to watch Kady’s performance and wanting to tear Marina limb from limb, she almost missed Eliot wrestle the gun out of his captor's hand. While Marina was distracted by her apparent win, Margo took her cue from Eliot as he pistol-whipped the man. No longer holding back, she threw a punch at Marina’s face, gritting her teeth as her knuckles connected with the other woman’s jaw. Quickly snatching her belongings with the other hand, she raced from booth to catch up with Eliot. They fled through the back, the sound of pursuers heavy on their tail, but she dared not look back. Margo vaguely registered the sound of a microphone fall to the ground. There was no time to think about what that meant. Shoulder first, Eliot barged through the back door, leading them out into an unfamiliar alley. 

“Street, or try our luck with another building?” Margo asked, referring to Eliot’s combat experience as to their safest escape. 

“Margo!” 

She turned back to the door they had just left to see Kady, barefoot as she hitched up her dress. By her side was the corrupt cop that Margo couldn’t seem to get away from. 

“Penny can get you away safely—I’ll keep them off your tail,” Kady said, pointing at the officer, who Margo assumed must be the one she called Penny. 

“Why should we trust one of Marina’s men?” 

“I’m not one of her men,” Penny said, throwing his arms across his chest. 

“You don’t have time for this, he has a shortcut Marina doesn’t know about, just let him take you away from here,” Kady insisted. She pushed Penny out of the doorway towards them, before turning back to the club in time to punch one of Marina’s thugs dead on the nose. “Go on, get out of here before I need to punch you too,” she added, throwing Margo a seductive smirk. 

“Come on Margo, what have we got to lose?” Eliot contributed, his tone far to calm for her liking. 

“Our lives?” 

“Just shut the fuck up and come with me.” 

Penny ran past, grabbing Margo by the wrist. To her surprise, his grip was easy to shake off. “Don’t you fucking touch me,” she cursed, standing her ground as he raced through an unmarked door off the side of the alley. 

“Margo,” Eliot said softly, taking her by the other hand. “We can teach him manners later,” he said, offering an urgent smile. 

Pride wounded in the chaos, Margo had no choice but to agree. Squashing her anger at the entire situation down she took flight alongside Eliot. Their ‘rescuer’ had gotten ahead of them, but not too far they couldn’t follow. All they could do was trust that Kady had put their lives in the right hands. If she hadn’t, Margo prayed that she or Eliot was a faster draw. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song featured in Chapter Nine is ‘How Soon’ originally recorded by Vaughn Monroe. The arrangement specified is the version performed by Martha Wainwright.


	10. Chapter 10

They ran what seemed like three or four miles before Margo realized that she and Penny had left Eliot far behind. In their haste, she had forgotten that he wasn’t as fit and healthy as he liked to appear. For over a year into their working relationship, he had managed to keep his wound a secret from her. It wasn’t until a night of too many cocktails and just enough cocaine where they ended up in bed together that she had seen the scars. She could still remember the shock when she saw the deep lines in red and white dashed all over his left thigh. Margo could still hear the resignation in his voice as he explained the metal pins that held the bones together. He never told her how it happened. She knew he never would. 

That he was even in sight of them still was a testament to the threat they were under. A threat she couldn’t help but know was entirely on her. 

“What the fuck is her deal?” She asked Penny as they caught their breaths while they waited for Eliot to catch up. 

“Why would I know?” He snapped back, doing little to convince her to maintain the minimal amount of trust she had in him. “I just do what they tell me.”

“You take no responsibility for the shit you do for her,” Margo accused him, the fire in her voice rising as she collected herself from the physical exertion. “Fucking figures.”

“You think I want to follow people around; to be the sleaze who collects protection money from pimps and drug dealers?” He had been looking out to see if they were being followed by anyone other than Eliot, but he turned and faced down her accusation. “You know how those people work. Of course, you do, you’re one of them.”

“How dare—”

“You think I don’t know who you are? Margo Hanson, daughter of Joey ‘Hollywood’ Hanson.” Penny looked her right in the eye, clearly testing for her reaction. She desperately tried to keep her cool, to pretend that the second mention of her father that night didn’t affect her in the slightest. But it really fucking did. For almost ten years she had done anything she could to distance herself from that name. Short of changing her own. There was no way she was ever going to give her father that satisfaction. 

“You have no idea who I am,” she said, her teeth clenched so hard it almost hurt. Were he not their only chance of getting out of the maze of alleys and squat houses they had run through, she would have punched him like she did Marina. If he continued, she still could. 

“Hard to believe you didn’t pick anything up, growing up with a gangster for a father.”

“Put your dick away,” Eliot said, finally having caught up. Bent over, he struggled to catch his breath, but couldn’t stop himself from being the smartass she had come to love in their three years working together. “If I hear another man with a hard-on for that prick I’m going to go back to wishing they never found me in Bastogne—which reminds me, we need to swing by Brakebills, Daddy needs his medicine.”

“You know who he is?” Margo did a double take, completely ignoring his request. Despite their closeness, she had never told him about her family. Early on in their relationship, they had agreed that blood was irrelevant, whining about things they had both left behind was just a waste of time. Whatever he left back in Indiana would never affect her, but she’d always worried that it was her past that would hurt them both. 

“Bambi, please,” he said, leaning on her for support while he fumbled for his flask. “Like I would spend three years as a private investigator and not find out who was behind my blacklisting with the studios.”

“You—”

“And yes because I know you’re wondering, I was mad at you for a while, but not as mad as I’ll be if you don’t get me something for this leg.”

“The safehouse is on the opposite side of the city to that fucking club,” Penny said, refusing to look at them after Eliot’s rebuke. “We’re not going.”

“Uh, no. I am not going to whatever rat infested squat you think is safe from a bunch of two-bit gangsters,” Eliot said as he returned to his full height. Margo could tell by the way he lightly favored his right leg, that the run had taken a lot more out of him that he was pretending, but she appreciated his attempt at demanding authority. 

“Exactly. We’re going to my apartment. If Marina thinks she’s rattled me, which that egotistical bitch definitely does, then it’s the last place she’ll look.” Margo paced, formulating a plan. “Take me to the nearest public telephone, Todd and Alice aren’t safe at the office,” she said, pointing a finger into Penny’s chest. “And you can also use it to get your little friend to come to us,” she added just for Eliot.

***

Two phone calls and considerably more arguments later, Margo stood in the center of her living room. Surrounded by more people than she had ever invited through her front door in the two years she has resided in the apartment, she felt something akin to claustrophobia—though she’d never before been concerned with close quarters. 

Seated in her armchair, Alice sat with her legs pulled up against her chest. Hair damp and dressed in one of the more demure disguises found in her closet, Margo couldn’t help but muse on the similarities between the girl and her own position almost twenty-four hours earlier. If things had been bad then, they were significantly worse now. 

Eliot reclined on her sofa, his left leg artfully elevated on the coffee table. To anyone unaware of his injury, he would have appeared to be merely making himself at home, but she knew he was hurting far more than he let on. Beside him, legs wide just as they had been when he waited for them outside Brakebills was Josh. Back and forth, the men passed an ebony pipe between them. The stench of marijuana wafted around the room, without a care for the police officer and Assistant District Attorney in their company. 

To her surprise, Josh had shown up at her door with Julia and James in tow. It seemed the attractive lawyer lacked imagination when choosing a place for him and Julia to dine. No wonder she had easily broken their engagement. It had proved fortuitous, though not quite enough to temper her dismay at Julia’s misfortune. The estranged couple sat around her dining table, along with a bewildered Todd. The entire affair was far beyond anything he should have been involved in, but the kid had taken it upon himself to ensure the continued safety of Alice. There was nothing Margo could do to deter him. 

The unlikely party was rounded out by Penny’s sullen figure, leaning against her front door. Since being outnumbered and outvoted, he’d hardly said a word. Margo would have dismissed him, but as much as she didn’t trust him to listen to their plans, she trusted him even less to be out of her sight. Under the pay of Marina, he had the most information to provide. Whether he liked it or not, Margo was going to get the truth out of him. 

“You two,” Margo pointed to Julia and James, “You’re from New York?” 

“Yes.”

“Ish.”

“Do either of you know the name Marina Andrieski,” she asked them, though she made sure to lock eyes with Penny.

“Should I?” Julia asked back, while James stayed silent. “I don’t think so. James?”

“Not from New York,” he said quietly. “But I have seen her name come up in the DA’s office.” His voice wavered at the admission. They both knew that wasn’t information he was supposed to share with someone like her. “She’s untouchable.”

“You’re all so far off the mark,” Penny said, taking the bait she had so lazily dangled in front of him. “Marina, Henry Fogg, your idiot friend Quentin…” he paused just long enough for her to hear the collective gasps of both Julia and Alice. “They’re all in so far over their heads. The people I work for, who Marina and Fogg work for, they are so much worse.”

“Enlighten us, o’ selfless criminal.” Eliot seemed to have recovered enough after their run to return to his natural sarcastic ways. 

“Fuck you,” Penny said, finally standing up without the support of her door. “You think I wanted this life? Why do you think I’m helping you? Kady convinced me that you idiots could get me out, but it’s pretty clear now that I’m the real idiot for listening to her.” 

“Help us get Quentin back, and I’ll do whatever I can,” James said, earning himself a look of gratitude from Julia. 

“How did they get you?” Alice piped up for the first time. 

“None of your—“

“Don’t speak to her like that.” Todd stood and raced over to protect the girl he had taken under his charge. 

“There more we know the better our chances,” Margo said. Her tone was considerably softer than it had been before, and she looked at him was a sympathetic smile. The time for accusations had passed. What she needed now was answers. 

“Fine. Whatever.” Penny’s ‘too good for this’ act was wearing thin, even to himself. “I did one job for them—it’s not exactly easy to get work when your hands are fucking useless.” He lifted his shirt sleeves to reveal thick red scars wrapped around his wrists. From the corner of her eye, Margo could see Alice self consciously hide the bruises around her own wrists. “Nerve damage. Souvenir from The Philippines.”

“Fuuuck,” both Eliot and Josh said in unison. 

“But when you do one job for these people, you might as well be signing your life away on a million-year contract,” Penny continued. His body swayed, as if he wanted to pace the room, but he just crossed his legs over one another instead. “Next thing I know I’m a fucking dirty cop.”

“Who are ‘these people’?” Margo interrupted. What Penny was saying was interesting, but the whole post-war sob story had to wait for another time. They still had no clue where Quentin was, and they had Marina and her thugs on their tail. 

“If I knew that, I wouldn’t be putting my life in your hands,” he threw back at her, closing up once again. She had gone in with the wrong tactic, and she wasn’t sure she knew how to get back on track. If only Kady was there to smooth things over. 

“Shit. Kady!” Margo’s thoughts jumped to her ex-girlfriend, left alone at the club, fending off men twice her size. Kady was more than capable of holding her own in a fistfight—that was one of the things that had drawn Margo to her in the first place—but that would only help her for so long. 

“Marina has her paying off her mom’s debt,” Penny said as if that was something to reassure her. “While there is something to get out of her she’s safe enough,” he added, still not convincing her. 

Fucking Hannah, Margo thought to herself. Her father might have been a gangster, and she would never forgive him the part that played in her childhood, but at least he wasn’t in her life anymore. From the little that Margo knew, Kady had been bailing out her mother since she was a child. Dragging her down to the kind of places Margo thought Kady had been able to escape from. Places she would have avoided had Margo not gotten cold feet and bailed when things between them got too real. 

Preferring not to think about any part she might have played, Margo made her way to her bar and poured herself a tall glass of brandy. She could just imagine Eliot’s wince at her incorrect choice of glassware, but she didn’t care for what was proper. She needed a break. Thirty seconds to breathe. A simple, uninterrupted moment before returning to the reality that everything was a mess and far too much of it had to do with her. 

“Enough!” The crack of a fist slammed on her hardwood dining table reverberated through the apartment. “I’m sorry your friend is still with whoever it is you’re talking about but Quentin is out there, and you’re doing nothing to find him!”

Margo turned to see Julia on her feet, eyes alight with a fire she could imagine would burn the whole city down if she wanted it to. Her pristine white suit was crushed from the events of the day, yet she looked anything but disheveled. She was something to be feared. From the look on James’ face, it wasn’t the first time she unleashed her inner Fury. 

“Where did you take him?” She demanded from Penny. “Where is he?”

“He wasn’t the one who kidnapped us,” Alice said, joining the amassing group of angry people in the center of Margo’s formerly decent sized living room. “The man was a little shorter and pale as snow.”

“He’s the asshole who passes on my orders. That’s as far up the chain as I’ve ever seen.” 

“Then what use are you?” Julia threw her hands on her hips. “And you’re supposed the be the one looking for him. All you seem to have found out tonight is that people want to hurt you.” The second part of her accusation landed squarely on Margo. She could feel her blood rising. Julia wasn’t wrong, but that didn’t mean Margo appreciated her attitude when directed at her. “I believed in you, but now I’m not so sure.”

“You want action?” Margo fought back, acutely aware that she was handling the situation terribly. "Lets fucking go then." She set down her glass on the bar and returned to her place in the center of the room. “Quentin and Alice were kidnapped after leaving Safe on Tuesday morning. Alice managed to escape that night,” Margo turned to Alice for confirmation. “You were in the Hills, weren’t you?”

“Ms. Hanson?” Todd answered instead of Alice. “Christopher Plover lives in the Hills.”

“I still don’t understand how you two connected him to your brother,” James said, the only one other than the two former soldiers getting high on her sofa who hadn’t yet stood in anger. 

“Charlie did odd jobs for him,” Alice explained. “He didn’t want a handout from our parents. He was saving so I could come out here and live with him.”

Margo paced the room, formulating a plan. The likelihood that the place in the Hills that Alice had escaped from was the Plover estate was low. There were thousands of homes up there and if the people that pulled the puppet strings of her high school roommate and the angry cop in her living room were as powerful as Penny insisted they could have Quentin hidden in any number of untraceable locations. Still, it was all they had. Even if they didn’t find him at the Plover estate, surely they would find something. 

“Eliot, you think you’re up for a midnight raid?” She asked her bleary-eyed assistant. The practical side of her knew they should wait until morning. That rest and a clear head would be better than the adrenaline filled madness of her half-cocked plan. Caution might be better. It also might be too late. Marina knew that Margo was looking for Quentin Coldwater. If word went up the chain that Penny was so afraid of, then there was no chance they would ever find him.


	11. Chapter 11

Leaving the two teenagers in the care of James, the rest of Margo’s makeshift crew set off for the Hollywood Hills. A few streets from the Plover estate, they left the car lent to them by James and made the rest of their way on foot. Once inside the looming cast iron gates, Margo instructed the men to search the perimeter of the house while she explored the inside with Julia. It would be a lot easier for the two women to talk their way out of a break and enter than it would be for the three veterans.She watched on with curiosity as Eliot and Josh repeated the same cryptic words they had uttered at the first meeting outside Brakebills. With defiant nods, and a modicum of understanding from Penny, the three went off in their separate directions.

Hidden by perfectly manicured hedgerows, Margo and Julia made their way up a long paved drive to what appeared to be a servants entry. The familiarity with the lifestyle she had grown up with was nauseating. A haunting house, too big for a single family and filled with violent secrets. Just as she did so many times as a young girl, Margo pulled a bobby pin from her hair and made short work of the flimsy lock, wincing as the door creaked right open. 

The inside of the house was the opposite of the outdoors. Where the gardens were meticulous, inside the furniture was covered a thick layer of dust. A sickly feeling filled her stomach. This place had been abandoned for some time, and the slim chance of finding Quentin was slipping further away. In the dim moonlight, she saw Julia’s sunken expression, even she knew it was hopeless. Suddenly Julia’s eyes lit up with what could have been fear when Margo felt a sharp pain in the back of her head, and a sudden warmth on her neck before everything went dark. 

***

Margo awoke to find that she was bound to a small chair. A dull ache ran through the back of her head, beating in time with the fast pulse of her heart. Her wrists were tied together and had been placed in her lap. On the opposite side of a small table, she saw Julia. Held captive in the same way as Margo, she was out cold; the only indication that she was still alive was the light flutter of her collar with every breath. 

Fighting against the ropes that held her chest to the back of the chair, Margo stretched as far down as she could. Through her trousers, she could touch the hilt of a knife strapped to her calf. It wasn’t enough. The ropes were pulled tight, and there was no further give. Failing an easy escape, she took a moment to survey their surroundings. 

The eerie dereliction of where they had entered was replaced by worn but well-maintained furniture. On the table between them, a thin line of steam rose from the spout of a floral patterned teapot. Matching cups and saucers had been placed in front of them, just out of reach. There was a third cup, against the edge of the table on the side closest to a wall. While Margo had surveyed the room, she focused on the open expanse that led to the door. She wished she never turned around. 

Covered in spider webs was the skeleton of what had to have been a child. She tried to scream when a large hand covered her mouth. Margo bit down on the soft skin and heard a muffled cry of pain. “Jesus, I’m trying to help you.” 

“Josh?” She whispered once he had released her from his grasp. “What is going on?” 

“Someone got Eliot first. I saw them dragging him down into the basement outside,” he explained, struggling to keep his voice hushed. “I tried to go after him, but it was locked from the inside. When I heard the commotion inside—figured I’d rescue a few damsels in distress. Beanpole can look after himself for a little longer..”

If she weren’t still bound to the chair, Margo would have strangled him. How he could be so helpful and yet was incapable of going more than a few minutes without pissing her off was beyond comprehension. “Get these ropes off me,” she ordered him, patience worn thin for his jokes in their dire situation. If anything happened to Eliot, she would never forgive herself. 

Once he finished with Margo’s restraints, Josh made his way over to Julia and released her too. A soft whimper came from her lips, but she remained unconscious. Not for the first time, Margo hated that she allowed herself to be goaded into action. She ran her hand through her hair, trying to work out what to do next. There were too many people involved. Too many variables she didn’t have the energy or patience to coordinate. Sticky, still drying blood had caught strands of her hair and stuck to the back of her neck, leaving them in a tangle her fingers couldn’t undo. Julia had to have the same injury, and if she wasn’t yet awake, it was likely worse than her own. 

“Take her back to the car,” Margo told him, surprised to find that he did so without so much as a wink. “There’s some medical supplies that I left in the back, do you—”

“I’ve patched up worse,” he said, more serious than she thought him capable of. Then again, she had only known him for three days. There had to be more to him than meat, drugs and poorly executed jokes. He lifted Julia up into his arms, taking care to keep her head as still as possible. “Be careful,” he whispered, leaving Margo alone with the cobwebbed remains. 

Drawing her gun, Margo investigated the room. Easily distinguishable from the heavy footprints left by Josh, she saw the smaller, heeled marks of a woman. Impossible for them to have belonged to Julia, Margo thought back to the papers given to her by Harriet Schiff. Plover had a sister, Constance. The only woman known to have lived with him other than the girl Jane, but she knew both twins had left the country years ago. That it could have been a middle-aged woman who got the drop on her and Julia left a wave of rising anger in her chest. 

Margo quietly left the room and followed the freshest prints on the dust-covered floorboards. How anyone could live in the house was beyond her. It was a mausoleum. Memorabilia from The World in the Walls and it’s sequels lined the hallway alongside portraits of a man who fit Plover’s description and the children he wrote about. The anger in her chest turned to sickening bile. Harriet’s theory over the fate of the author was feeling less like tabloid speculation with every passing step. 

Soft golden light filtered through the crack of an open door up ahead. Margo tiptoed to the source, wary of the floorboards beneath her feet. Weapon raised, she nudged the door open to reveal a study. Fully furnished and heavily used, the room was illuminated by a high powered lantern knocked on its side, hanging precariously off the edge of the desk. Pages of notes were strewn about, surrounding an old typewriter and a telephone left off the hook. This must be where he wrote the stories, she quietly thought to herself, the awe washing over her before she remembered just what had brought her there. Skimming the notes, Margo noted the names and characters that followed on from the novel she had read; Plover was working on another book. 

“Children should be neither seen nor heard.” A prim British accent caught her attention from the door. Margo looked up from the notes to see a woman in her late forties brandishing a flat wooden bat. “This is Mr. Plover’s private writing room. You will be punished for this intrusion.”

Despite the dull ache that still pounded in her head, Margo couldn’t help but roll her eyes. Constance Plover, for that was the only explanation, looked every bit the fairytale villain of a children’s story. Grey eyes wild, it took Margo a few moments to understand the implications of her words. Her brother was still working on the stories, still alive, and possibly working with his sister to hold Quentin, and now Eliot captive. 

“I don’t think so,” Margo said, drawing out every syllable while Constance stepped towards her. Picking up her gun from where she had placed it on the desk to inspect the papers, she aimed it at the woman. Eyes locked, she watched for a reaction only Constance seemed unfazed. 

“Silence in The Writing Room,” Constance bellowed, still coming towards her. 

“Are you fucking stupid?” Margo cocked back the hammer, adding to her warning. She didn’t want to shoot her, not when she didn’t have enough answers yet. The sound seemed to snap Constance out of her oblivious threats. She backed up, arms slightly raised in surrender. “That’s right lady,” Margo said as she circled the desk. “So far you’re the only bitch getting punished tonight.” Constance stepped backward until she hit the door frame. “Now take me to my partner before I make a mess in your precious ‘Writing Room’.”

Once Constance dropped the bat, Margo picked up the lantern. Gun still trained on the woman, with the extra light she made her lead them down through the house to a small, unassuming door. Unlocked by a key stashed around Constance’s neck, Margo tapped her gun against her back, nudging her down a narrow staircase. Watching as she stumbled, she wondered if that had been a bad idea when she heard a raspy voice calling for help. Unable to tell if it was Eliot, Margo bounded down the stairs, nearly tripping over Constance who had stopped at the base. The lantern slipped from her hands and rolled along the floor. Light threatened to be extinguished with every movement, it finally settled a few feet away, flickering gently but refusing to go out. 

Snatching at Margo’s gun, Constance fought to regain her authority. With a swift knee to Constance’s abdomen, Margo knocked her to her knees. Panting, winded, Constance barely acknowledged Margo. Eyes trained on the place where the lantern laid, she wailed out. Incoherent screams of anguish that far outweighed any pain that Margo could cause echoed through the underground room. 

Heavy footfalls vibrated from the stairs. Gun cocked, Margo risked taking her eyes off Constance to aim for whoever was running to join them. At the sight of a pair of legs that didn’t belong to Eliot, she squeezed the trigger.

“Don’t fucking shoot m—what the fuck?” Penny announced himself, his voice the only saving grace from Margo’s bullet. Dropping her aim at the last second, the bullet lodged in the stairs instead. 

Expecting a reprimand, she found herself ignored by the police officer. His focus was on the same direction as Constance, and she corrected her aim to the woman who was her only suspect with Christopher Plover still absent. Margo anticipated a sign, a scream—anything from him after the commotion, but there were only the people in the room. Scanning the room she saw Penny and Constance, both their eyes glued to the shadows behind the lantern. A few feet away, she noticed the slumped figure of Eliot, his head lay on the lap of another man she had never met, though his face had been committed to memory. Quentin Coldwater. Face gaunt, dirt and tears were smeared over his cheekbones. His shirt and trousers were torn just like Alice’s dress. Despite his ordeal, a thin smile grew across his face. 

“Margo, you have to see this,” Penny called out to her. He had moved to the light, his body bent over, inspecting the source of Constance Plover’s anguish. 

Focus torn between the two men bound on the floor and the urgency in Penny’s voice, Margo chose her man instead. Reaching for her knife, she beckoned for Quentin to bring his hands out to where she could cut through them. 

“Chains,” he croaked, his voice dry with dehydration. “She didn’t want to take any chances after Alice got away.” 

Thinking of the rope burns on the teenager’s hand, Margo found her anger returned. Leaving Quentin and Eliot, she made her way to Penny and tapped her gun against Constance’s cheek with more force than necessary. “Give me the keys, you wicked fucking witch. I might not be Dorothy, but I will still fuck you up.”

“Does that make me Toto?”

“Eliot?!” She turned to see that he had woken from his head injury. 

“You’re lucky you’re cute,” he said. It didn’t take Margo long to work out that he wasn’t talking to her; trust Eliot to flirt with the victim of kidnapping while they were still dealing with one of the culprits. Assured that he was fine for the time being, Margo returned her attention to Constance. The woman refused to pay her any mind, soft whimpers slipped from her lips as she clawed at the ground. 

“Quiet. They promised quiet. He was supposed to finish his stories. How can anyone get any work done with all this racket? Brother. Brother, they promised us quiet.”

“Margo,” Penny said. His voice was quiet but so even that it commanded her attention. Pointing to the ground, he led her eyes to the remains of another four bodies. One adult, one child and two that fit somewhere in between. Unlike the skeleton upstairs, these still wore the tattered remnants of the clothes they had died in. From the look of their garments, one of the bodies was female, her once blue skirt wrapped around her legs. The fingers of her right hand were twisted into what could have been the grip of someone holding a gun. As she surveyed the adult figure, Margo confirmed her suspicions, the tell-tale damage of a bullet hole decorated its forehead. “What do you think happened here, homicide?” Penny asked, reminding her that she was working with a cop—even if he was corrupt. 

“I can’t even tell where this mess begins,” she said, shaking her head. Margo had almost forgotten about the woman at her feet, still muttering senseless words. “But I think that might be Plover.”

“This is messed up.” Penny ran his hand up the back of his neck and sighed. The stress and confusion of their situation had gotten to him too. 

“Yeah.” Margo turned at the crackly voice to see Quentin had sat up straight. He was more alert than she expected he could be. The light bounced off something metal in his grip. Eliot’s flask. No wonder he had perked up. Before they left her apartment, Eliot had filled it with a cheap white spirit they had found one night in Chinatown and dubbed it Rocket Fuel. She remembered laughing when he joked that you could level cities with it. There was no joking now. “Plover has been dead three years,” Quentin added with complete certainty.

“Answers, now,” Margo said as she smacked Constance with the gun for the second time. 

“All I wanted was quiet,” she muttered. “ Mr. Plover needed to finish his book—silence to finish but those noisy children.” she continued, flowing in and out of coherence. “Guns in my home. That stupid girl. Never liked her. Always so loud. The boy was good. Did as he was told.”

“We’re never getting anything with her like this,” Margo said, frustrated with the situation. She still didn’t have Eliot and Quentin free of their chains. “Give me the fucking keys,” she asked again. Constance recoiled at the vitriol in her voice and fumbled with something around her neck. “Slowly,” Margo said, wary that she might have reached for a weapon. The woman handed her a large key instead. The thick heavy bow was intricately cast of lead, while the blade was simple in design. Judging its weight, she locked eyes with Eliot and threw it to his outstretched hand. 

While the men freed themselves from their chains, Margo resumed her survey of the bodies. On the right hand of the second tallest skeleton, for there really was no other way to distinguish them, the ring finger was missing. Her stomach dropped. “Charlie Quinn.” Her voice was less than a whisper. Somehow she would need to work out how to tell Alice.

“Not Charlie,” Quentin said. He stood behind her with Eliot by his side, and it was impossible to tell who was holding on to whom for support. “That’s Martin,” he said, pointing at the one with the missing finger. “And Jane,” he added and motioned to the girl.

“You mean,” she said, working it out in her head. If the twins never traveled home to England, then it must have been Charlie with Martin’s papers. 

“Stupid boy with his stupid girlfriend, on the boat, but who knows if they ever got off,” Constance muttered cryptically, earning herself the threat of a third smack with the gun.

“Have I ever mentioned I hate horror films,” Eliot winced. Margo saw that he could barely stand, and beckoned Penny to help him and Quentin. 

The question of what to do with Constance Plover burned in her mind. It was clear she had gone mad with grief over the death of her brother. Though she had no proof, Margo had her suspicions that the girl Jane had been the one to shoot him. Even lacking knowledge of the girl’s motive, Margo had enough personal experience to understand the desire to kill her guardian. They couldn’t take her to the police—Penny’s involvement on both sides made that an impossibility. Her only hope laid with James, the attorney, and a prayer that he would have high enough connections to make this too big to be swept under the rug.

Sending the men ahead, Margo grabbed the lantern and nudged Constance to her feet and pushed her up the stairs. Until they were confident of their next step, she would have to stay with them, the most unwelcome visitor to her apartment. As they neared the exit, Margo heard a squeal. Gun raised, she pushed Constance through and checked where it came from. 

In the bright moonlight, she saw Alice’s blonde hair, barely hidden under a dark beret. “I’m so sorry Ms. Hanson.” Behind Eliot and the others was Todd, sincere apologies plastered over his face.

Alice had wrapped her arms around Quentin’s waist, holding him tight while he gently patted her on the back. “I’m so glad they found you,” she said, her voice muffled against his chest. 

“Silence in my garden!” Constance cried out. “You—you caused all this! I told them they needed to make you go quiet.”

Releasing Quentin from her embrace, Alice pushed past him to face down her kidnapper. “Where is Charlie?” The excitement from her voice vanished, replaced by cold determination. “Where is my brother.”

“Alice,” Margo tried to soften the blow that was about the fall.

“Bottom of the ocean,” Constance said proudly. “With that stupid girl.”

“Emily.” Alice’s voice was monotone. “You killed my brother,” she said, pulling a small gun from her dress pocket. Margo recognized the tiny Derringer, the one she kept in her nightstand drawer. 

“It was supposed to keep you all away. They promised if I fixed that they would fix this. They promised.”

“So did I.” The words Alice spoke were barely audible over the sound of the shot. Beside Margo, Constance crumpled to the ground. Blood poured from the wound in below her eye, while Margo stood on in shock. 

“Jesus, fuck.” Margo couldn’t tell who spoke, but her thoughts echoed their words. 

“What the fuck do we do now?” Penny asked, staring at her. 

“How do I know?” Margo snapped back before she had a chance to work out a plan. “Fuck.” She paced away from the now dead body. “You, just, deal with her I,” she tried to instruct, pointing at Alice who stood frozen in place. Looking to Eliot and Quentin, they were both too broken to be of any use to her. “Todd,” she said, seeing the only other person there. “I need you to help me drag this body to Hell.”

***

“No hospitals.” Penny’s voice was the first Margo heard as she returned from dropping Constance’s body with that of her brother and the others. It wasn’t the best idea, but it was the only one they had.

“I was a nurse,” said Julia, somehow back at the house and conscious after Josh had taken her to the car. “Between Private Hoberman here and myself, we can take care this.”

“Come on,” Josh added, the pride at being recognized by Julia loud and clear in his voice. 

Margo threw her hand up over her face. She had just dumped a body with Todd, who was far too innocent to be dealing with any of this. She wanted to fight against all these amateurs who had taken it upon themselves to start calling the shots, but she was too drained to do anything about it. The ache at the back of her head had returned after the distraction of their deceased culprit disappeared into the depths of the house. She needed to get cleaned up, have a drink or two and then face the next problem; her former friend and an ex-girlfriend who maybe needed saving. With Kady, it was always hard to tell.


	12. Chapter 12

The sun was up by the time they arrived back at Margo’s apartment. James had left long ago, convinced he could find something to help them at his office. She cursed his misplaced helpfulness. Without him leaving, Alice might not have been able to get out to the Hills. 

Once inside, Julia and Josh had set up a small triage station to look after Eliot and Quentin’s injuries. Watching on, Margo noticed that the four of them had entered their own little world while poor Todd looked on without a clue of where he belonged. “Go on home kid,” she told him as she gently placed her hand on his shoulder. 

“I, I gotta go start my shift,” he said leaning into her touch. He almost towered over her, but he seemed so small. She never should have gotten him involved. 

“Go home, they’ll cover you,” she said. Reaching into her pocket, she found what was left of Julia’s original retainer. It had to be over one hundred dollars still. Placing it in his hand, she closed his fist over the cash. “I’ll cover you kid.”

“It’s too much,” he protested, trying to give it back. 

“Don’t fight me, Todd, go take care of your family.”

Too much gratitude later, he finally left, passing Penny who had resumed his place guarding the door. Since the car, the police officer had remained silent, but his eyes gave her every reassurance that she didn’t need to worry about him turning Alice in. The events of the night had left them reluctantly bonded. Margo couldn’t be sure, but she felt begrudging mutual respect for the man who had so recently broken into her home. Fucking shared trauma. Way to make her bring her guard down. 

From the couch, she heard Eliot humming the bars of the song from the club. From Kady. Everyone else was in her apartment, but not the one person she didn’t want to admit she still had feelings for. It wasn’t sentimentality, Margo tried to convince herself—she owed Kady for helping her and Eliot get away from Marina. She vowed to march down to the nightclub, but first Margo had to work out what to do with Alice. Curled up on her armchair, the young woman hadn’t said a word since she pulled the trigger. She hadn’t made eye contact with anyone, not even Quentin. 

Older, wiser and considerably more jaded than Alice, the ordeal of being attacked and held captive mostly made Margo angry. But she wasn’t Alice, she hadn’t been alone, and she hadn’t killed anyone that night. The girl needed someone more qualified with emotions, one of those people who knew the difference between sympathy and empathy. Margo felt she possessed neither of them, let alone understood how they worked. Yet she was all there was. Knelt before Alice, her expression softened with a genuine concern she barely knew what to do with. 

“You should get some rest,” Margo said, resisting the urge to take her by the hand. Despite the heat, she still wore long sleeves to hide the marks on her wrists. Touching her without her permission was out of the question. “Come on,” she added, reaching out her hand for Alice to take if she was ready.

Face scrunched and legs still pulled in tight against her chest, Alice extended her arm. Her hesitation was noticeable, but her state of shock appear to make her receptive enough to Margo’s offer that she didn’t fight against it. Alice’s palm was ice cold in Margo’s hand, her grip was weak. Worried that she would have to pick her up or drag her, Margo wrapped her own hand around Alice’s, hoping the warmth of her own body would spread. 

Gradually Alice relaxed and pulled herself up from the armchair. With a cursory glance around the room to ensure she wasn’t needed, Margo led her to the bedroom. Easily convinced, Alice took a seat on the bed, while Margo rifled through her closets for a nightgown that would fit the teen. Returning to Alice with a simple white number, she found her staring at an unlabelled bottle of arrack. Near impossible to find since the war, Margo kept it by her bedside in memory of extended family she had never met.

“A drink might help,” she said, passing the nightgown to Alice while she opened her bedside drawer and produced a pocket-sized bottle of whiskey. “A sip now, and another later if you still can’t sleep.”

“He’s never coming back,” Alice said after she had taken a sip. Her face contorted in a look of pain that didn’t match the tone of her words. There was a resignation in her voice, the kind that suggested Alice always knew how it would end. “He cared about other people too much.”

“Always a mistake.” The words slipped out of Margo’s mouth before she could think to hold them back. She really was terrible with emotion. 

“Yes. I won’t be like that.” Another sip of the whiskey and Alice turned away from Margo to get changed. Margo tried not to notice just how thin she was, or the bruises on her back. Bringing that up when she had finally found peace was the last thing Alice needed from her. 

With the dress thrown over her head, Alice rapidly pulled it down and slipped under the covers of the bed. “Thank you,” she said as she laid her head on the pillow and closed her eyes. The thoughts and images that would no doubt plague her dreams were too much for anyone to bear, let alone a scared teenage girl. Yet, between the shaking and the shock, Margo could see a glimmer of ice cold stoicism. Through everything she had experienced, Alice had an inner strength, one that may surpass her own. 

Clear that she was no longer needed in the room, Margo hesitated by the bottle of Arrack before snatching it up. Returning to the living area of her apartment, she picked up two glasses from her bar and made her way over to Penny. 

“I need your help to get Kady,” she said. Chin raised, she elbowed him and indicated he follow her to the vacant table. Cocking his head to the side, he eventually nodded his agreement and took the seat across from where she had sat. Pouring them each a glass, she slid one over to him and tipped hers in Penny’s direction before slamming back half. She shook her head at the taste and watched as he followed suit. 

“Fuck,” he said while a genuine smile formed on his face. “It’s been a long time since I’ve had that.”

Margo threw him a sly smirk and finished the rest of her glass. When he wasn't being an ass, he wasn’t half bad, and with Eliot out for the time being with his injuries, Penny mightn’t be the worst person to have on her side.

“You got a phone here?” Josh asked from the floor.

“Bambi doesn’t trust telephones,” Eliot piped up, his speech slightly slurred. Despite her best efforts, Margo’s body tensed up at the use of his pet name for her. He must have found some morphine, she figured—he wouldn’t be so intimate if his mind were slightly clearer. She pretended it didn’t happen and hoped the morphine remained a short-term solution. 

“There’s a public one downstairs,” she said, “why?”

“Gotta call out and get someone to cover me. I’m not going in today, not after last night.”

Margo brought her attention back to Penny, they needed to work out a plan to get Kady from under Marina’s thumb. 

“Hoberman wants to stay and flirt with Ms. Wicker,” Eliot whispered, louder than he intended. 

The constant distractions were starting to put Margo on edge. Thankfully, Josh left quickly, hiding his bright red flushed face. 

“I still don’t understand how you knew it wasn’t Plover writing those stories,” Julia asked, piquing Margo’s reluctant interest. It was obvious to her after having seen the extensive notes Constance used to continue her brother’s legacy, but how Quentin uncovered it was still a mystery. 

“You don’t spend years reading people’s mail looking for hidden messages without picking up some skill,” Quentin answered. For someone who had spent the last few days chained in a basement, he was in a surprisingly coherent state. “And when I heard that Charlie Quinn and some waitress at Brakebills went missing around the same time I worked out the books changed authors, I figured it was worth looking into.” 

Margo had to give it to him, he wasn’t half bad at detective work. Not a single news report or police file she had found mentioned the girl. If he were inclined to stick around LA she’d be tempted to hire him, and from the way Eliot has taken a shine. him, he would agree. 

“They're all a lot less useless than I expected,” Penny muttered, just loud enough for Margo to hear. “But it’s going to take more than that to bring down Marina and the people she works for,” he added, grabbing the bottle and pouring himself a second glass. Finishing the drink in one go, he pushed the empty glass to the middle of the table. “Kady’s tough; she knows how to handle Marina, it’s her mom you need to worry about. She’ll never leave while Hannah owes them money.”

“Money I can handle,” Margo said quickly. That was the least of their problems. 

A few moments later the door to Margo’s apartment rattled under the turning of the handle. Assuming it was just Josh returning from his phone call, Margo tried to resume her conversation with Penny. “You got a figure for me?”

“I’m so sorry.” Todd’s strained voice shook Margo from planning. “I didn’t mean to—”

“Shut up, kid.”

Margo’s heart sank. Behind a frightened Todd stood Marina, sporting a bruised jaw. From the way her hand was hidden behind his back, it was clear she held a gun to it. Todd ran towards her, fighting the urge to cower behind her for safety. “She was waiting at the office for you.”

“All right, calm down,” Marina said, raising the pistol in the air. “I’m going to put this on the ground, and we’re going to talk,” she continued, kneeling to the ground to place the gun on the floor between them. 

“What the fuck are you doing here, Marina,” Margo asked. Just saying her name felt like acid on her tongue. She was unarmed, and despite the group that surrounded her, Margo still felt like somehow Marina had the upper hand. She always did.

Reaching into her handbag, Marina pulled out a thick wad of cash and threw it on the table between Margo and Penny. “I’m here to hire you,” she said, almost sincere enough for Margo to believe her. “I need protection.”

Still in shock, Margo heard Eliot snort his disbelief. The same reaction she would have had if she had been capable of more than open-mouthed confusion. 

“How do you need protection?” Margo finally asked as her eyes moved between the cash and her former friend. 

“Thanks to your little display,” Marina started, rocking to one side with her hand placed on her hip in frustration. “And Kady’s fists,” she added. “My guys were useless when they came.”

“Shit,” Penny said, the gravity of Marina’s comments landing for him alone.

Behind her, the door to Margo’s apartment flew open, and Josh barged through. Once inside, he leaned forward, hands on his knees while he panted for air. “What are you doing here?” he asked, once he had recovered enough to see that they had been joined by Marina. “Ahh, who cares, that’s not important,” he mumbled. Pushing past Marina, Josh made his way over to Margo and Penny. “Henry Fogg is dead,” he said, all the usual brightness in his eyes had disappeared.

Marina visibly shook at Josh’s statement. That was something Margo had never seen from her before. Struggling through panicked breaths, Marina backed up against the edge of the couch where Eliot and Quentin sat in stunned silence. 

“They’re cleaning up loose ends,” Penny said as he poured himself another shot of arrack. 

“How did he die,” Margo asked Josh, refusing to accept a conspiracy before she had all the facts.

“Found in his bed, overdosed,” Josh answered. “I talked to his girlfriend, Bigby—she swore they never shot up at home.”

“And you believe her?”

“I believe that about him.” 

“You need to help me,” Marina said, more afraid than Margo had ever seen her. “I’ll tell you everything—starting with how Mayor Morrison murdered his son and had me clean it up.” 

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Margo stood up from her chair. “Morrison is the ‘they’ you two have been fucking talking about like some big bad ghost.” 

“You have no idea.” Penny said, catching her eye, “he’s backed by some serious motherfucking assholes.”

“Why should I help you?” Margo collected herself, determined to regain control of the situation. 

“You’re on their radar—who do you think had that guy kidnapped?” Marina exclaimed, pointing at a bewildered Quentin. “Besides, they have your girlfriend.” 

“She’s not my-” Margo started to deny her connection to Kady, but semantics didn’t matter. No matter what they were to each other, she would do whatever she needed to do to get her back. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Penny get up. He loomed over Marina, his body tensed with the same rage that she felt building inside her.

“If anything happens to her, that family is going to be the least of your problems.” 

Just when Margo thought she had solved her case, a whole new one had arrived on her doorstep. Throwing back another shot of the sweet coconut alcohol, she looked around the room; three G.I’s in various states of injury and addiction, a recently rescued code breaker, a proud nurse with deep pockets and a scared kid. In her bedroom, hopefully sleeping, was either the toughest of them all or a girl ready to break. From Eliot’s tired eyes to Todd and his profuse apologies for something far outside his control, all she saw was a collection of amateurs and broken soldiers. Margo didn’t know if she could count on them all to stay, and it pained her to think that she might need them to succeed in the task ahead. This wasn’t like any case she had worked on before, and she had never had so much to lose. Taking on the mayor and his ominous backers would need skills that she alone couldn’t possess. All Margo could hope that her mismatched alliance was enough to take on the man that owned most of Los Angeles. 

End. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ## Margo Hanson PI, will return in The Lost Siren.


End file.
